SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

not as good as all the hype

Let's be realistic.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Looking round a spooky old house inhabited by no-one but a comatose old lady for hidden treasure is usually not a good idea. Especially on Halloween. At the dead of night. This building is chock full of stuffed creatures, dusty relics and boarded up windows. But our three interlopers are desperate to get out of their dead-end lives, so in they go... and it turns out to be the worst mistake of their (soon to be cut short) young lives.The best horror films always have a good atmosphere, and you can feel every creak of the floorboards and each goose-pimple developing as the intrepid trio do their rounds. There are no cheap, easy deaths here... each one is built up careful and slow, until the nasty denouement. And these are people who given *gasp* BACK STORIES and what they says sounds like it could come from the mouth of a person, rather than a simple lamb to the slaughter.I'm not quite sure I understood all the plot details (even at the end) but what I can report is the execution is ingenious and genuinely disturbing. A horror with some semblance of originality, who'd have thunk it? Perhaps because it was made in France... away from the jaded genre prototypes of the USA. Coming soon: a remake, where they remove most of the chilling ambiance, and replace it with an unsubtle bloodbath, And a sassy robot. You know it's certain... 7/10

I'll say the worst things first. There will be a lot of "WTF did I just see" in the end. There will be loose ties and lingering questions. There will be some artsy stuff and no clear explanations to many things. If you don't mind that, or if you actually embrace that kind of stuff, I recommend "Livide" very highly. Acting is surprisingly good. Right from the start, you'll notice that even characters that appear for one minute, really do a convincing job. I really loved Chloé Coulloud. Not only was she pretty good in her role (though I must admit that it was the supporting actors, not the three main characters that stole the show), she's one of the most naturally beautiful women I've seen in years. You'll notice it.This is just as much horror as it is some crazy fantasy. It often feels surreal, and there's even quite a lot of gore. I was fascinated with the main mystery as well. Funny, because I watched "Cassadaga" before this, and it had the same three elements as "Livide": Supernatural, gore and mystery. While I wasn't impressed with Cassadaga, I loved this one. Cinematography is often beautiful and creepy, as should be when there's an old mysterious house as the main location. I loved the creepy stuff, the whole artistic design and interior of the house. Stuffed animals, dolls, paintings, statues, colors, lights, the works. And no, they're not there just for cheap jump-scares. While watching this, I really felt I was traveling in that same surreal house with the main cast, room by room. There's lots of imaginative, fairy-tale like material, and while I wouldn't necessarily throw Guillermo Del Toro - comparisons around, I can understand why many people do.That's it. I'm not a fan of french films, but this one won me over. It goes a little nuts at the end, doesn't answer all main questions and that may frustrate some people - me too, not going to lie - but this was still a very welcome trip. Not once was I bored nor checked my watch. This movie captivated me and my imagination to the very end. A little frustrating movie, but so very well done. I can't really pinpoint the main element that made me like this so much. Perhaps the overall quality and that certain "magic" that some movies just have.

"Livide" was a major disappointment for me, especially after I was thrilled to get to see it after what I read on the back of the DVD cover. This movie was nothing at all as what I had expected it to be.The storyline, well I will not go into detail here and give anything away. But I will summarize it briefly; it is about a young girl who takes on the work as a caregiver and comes to learn of a supposed treasure in the house of an old, withering, dying woman. But the house holds a terrible secret.Right, well first of all, you need to go about 45 minutes or so into the movie before anything even remotely worthwhile starts to happen. And even after that, then the movie is a bit too surreal and far-fetched to properly catch my liking.What works out well for the movie is the imagery and the camera work. There is some really nice shots in the movie and the contrast of colors is just spectacular. So visually, then "Livide" is a great movie and I would rate the movie higher if this was a factor important enough to lift up the movie, but it wasn't.The people hired to portray the various roles were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, however they were just struggling with a rather ridiculous storyline.Effects-wise, then "Livide" was actually quite upbeat. The special effects were nice to look at and worked out quite well. The make-up effects too. So thumbs up for this part.The storyline goes from dull and slow-paced, so strange and somewhat surreal. I supposed this movie is a matter of acquired taste, however personally, I didn't really care much for it. For a horror movie, it was fairly tame.

Chloé Coulloud plays trainee care worker Lucie Klavel, whose first day on the job sees her visit the crumbling country home of elderly coma patient Mrs. Jessel. On learning from her boss that Jessel, a once successful ballet teacher, is rumoured to have a vast fortune hidden somewhere in her house, Lucie, her boyfriend, and his brother break into the old building to search for the treasure, but uncover a terrifying secret instead.I absolutely loved French directing duo Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's brilliantly inventive and very bloody debut Inside, which only makes it all the more disappointing that their second film, Livid, is such a complete and utter mess, a hodge-podge of half-baked ideas wrapped in a stale 'freaky fairytale' aesthetic that makes not a lick of sense.A gang of thieves breaking into a building only to discover something terrible lurking inside is hardly the most original of ideas, and Livid's surreal, oneiric style, which includes the use of such trite horror clichés as bizarre toys, broken dolls, creepy children, and stuffed animals, only adds to the sense of deja vu. The ironic thing is, when the directors do steer their film into more original waters, matters only get worse, the pair delivering plenty of surreal spookiness and some decent gore but failing to give a rational explanation for any of the madness they depict.Vampiric creatures; a 'broken' ballerina given a clockwork spine; soul transference via moth; ethereal will-o-the-wisp flames; a flying house: undeniably very bizarre, but what the hell it's all about is anyone's guess. Bustillo and Maury sure aren't telling...3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.