PAPILLON NOIR

If there is something to darken the mood after coming back from sunnier climes, it’s that damn Monday. Once again at work, your tanned skin is bleaching away in front of the PC screen, your colleagues running away when you want to show the holiday pics… That’s at least what Julie and Matthew, a couple going through a crisis, expect to get on their plate. But they’re in for a surprise. There’s no sign of life from the family. Weird guys are shouting about the end of the world in the streets, the radio spews news flashes about a virus that makes Ebola look like a common cold and people who don’t seem to be alive (but also not really dead) have taken over the city center. And if that’s not enough, they also run into a raving serial killer who believes that God has chosen him to clean up the human race.

Al a kid Edouard Gauvin must have fallen in a box stuffed with comedies and horror films. That seems to be the only explanation why his feature debut is so rich in dark humor, horror and self-mockery. You could call it social horror with a Belgian twist. And there are some Bifff-familiars to be seen on the screen, such as Damien Marchal and Michel Angély.