Speaker #0Bonjour and welcome to the French Cinema Roll, the podcast where we peel back the cinematic layers of French most compelling films, one movie and one theme at a time. I'm your host Georgia and today we are descending into the concrete trap of a Parisian housing block crawling with more than just spiders. We are talking about Vermin, or Infested in English, the 2023 French survival horror directed by Sébastien Vanissek. At first glance it's a tightly wound creature feature, but under the exoskeleton there is a biting social commentary. Our theme for this episode, killing spiders as a symbol of a social discourse. What do these monsters represent? Who really brought them in? And what happens when society lets something rot from the inside? MUSIC. Infested is a 2023 French horror film, written and directed by Sébastien Vanissek, known for his acclaimed short films like Mayday and Crocs. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Critics' Week section and gained momentum through horror circles. Distributed by Netflix, it has been praised as one of the most effective French horror films of the past decade. The story takes place in a run-down housing project in the Paris suburbs, immediately setting it apart from traditional horror locations. Caleb, a young man obsessed with exotic pets, brings home a mysterious spider he buys from a shady street vendor. Unbeknownst to him, this spider is deadly, hyper-reproductive and is highly aggressive. Once it escapes, it quickly spawns a nest and the apartment block becomes ground zero for a terrifying infestation. As the building is locked down by authorities, Caleb, his sister Manon, and a handful of neighbors must fight to survive, trapped in a concrete death trap. Caleb, played by Theo Christine, is a layered protagonist, both reckless and caring, driven by guilt and survival. His arc is one of growing responsibility. Lisa Nyarko, as Manon, offers an emotional core. Her fear is grounded and deeply human. The ensemble cast includes Finn Gunn Oldfield and Sophia Lessavre, who bring realism and emotional tension to an otherwise fantastical setup. Importantly, these characters feel real, urban, relatable, and rarely represented in general films. Shown in the iconic brutalist complex of Noisy-le-Grand, famously used in Brazil and the Hunger Games, the film's location is both terrifying and symbolic, a decaying urban fortress. The lighting is claustrophobic, and practical effects and animatronics were prioritized over CGI, making the spiders feel sickeningly real. But this isn't just about spiders. It's about infestation as metaphor, about what gets into a community when no one is looking, and what grows in the cracks left by neglect. From the first frame, the film presents these people as abandoned, ignored and already under siege long before a single spider bites. Let's start with the title, Vermine. In French, it doesn't just mean bugs or pests, it's a slur, a dehumanizing word used throughout history to refer to the marginalized immigrants, the poor, the unwanted. So when the film unleashes an arachnid apocalypse, it's not just jump scares, it's a mirror. These spiders become a manifestation of how society views people in the banlieue, as dirty, dangerous, multiplying out of control, a vermin. There's a pointed irony in how quickly the state responds to the infestation, with lockdown, barriers, total abandonment. The same urgency isn't applied to broken elevators, moldy ceilings or absent social services. The residents are not saved, they are contained. And isn't that the deeper horror? That people only become visible to the state when they pose a threat. Now let's talk about the act of killing. Throughout the film, survival means killing spiders. Brutally, creatively, desperately. But what does the killing really represents? For some characters, it's catharsis, taking back control, fighting the thing that has overrun their lives. But there's a darker reading. What if killing the spiders is also a symbol of internalized fear, of wanting to destroy the thing that others say makes your community dirty? In this light, the spiders represent not just fear but self-perception. Caleb brings in the spider out of curiosity, out of defiance. Briefly we see that he cares for it. Then it turns on him. The same could be said for how society treats its community, tolerated until feared, then destroyed. So is the act of extermination truly liberating, or is it just another cycle of violence, taught by a system that sees survival as a zero-sum game? The film's setting isn't a backdrop, it's a character. The housing block is brutalist, decaying and vertical. It traps its residents just as much as the spiders do doors stick elevators fail hallways echo with isolation this isn't accidental vermine is deeply aware of france's history of banlieues suburbs built to warehouse immigrant labor only to be abandoned as political winds shifted the infestation is a metaphor for this long-term neglect the spiders crawl through vents and cracks like the consequences of systematic failure multiplying in silence. And in the end, the building itself becomes a tomb, or a fortress, depending on who survives and how. Let's talk technique. Sébastien Vanisek doesn't just scare with spiders. He frames fear. The camera is intimate, claustrophobic. It crawls along walls, skitters into shadows, There's almost no relief, no outside world to run to. Lighting is used sparingly, often natural or fluorescent, enhancing the bleak realism. This isn't gothic horror, it's urban realism wrapped in arachnid panic. The sound design is especially critical. The skittering, clicking, scratching, it amplifies both dread and paranoia. And the violence is brutal, but never unprovoked. Every death carries emotional weight, reminding us that each character is fighting for more than their life, they are fighting for dignity. Of course, Vermin isn't flawless. So here's where the spiderweb frays a bit. First of all, the thin character arcs. While Caleb is an interesting lead, some of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped. There's a group of tenants with potential emotional depth, friends, family, neighbors, but a lot of them are sketched rather than fully drawn. In the rush to maintain tension, some characters' beats feel rushed or cliché. Then we have the slightly repetitive middle act. The middle section, while tense, occasionally repeats the same beat. Hide, run, encounter spider, narrowly escape. It doesn't sag too badly but a bit more variation in the tension or more support. prices could have elevated the film even further. Then there is the ending and no spoilers here. The ending is bold but a little divisive. Without spoiling anything let's just say it's more about tone than tying everything up. Some viewers may want more closure or payoff especially after so much build-up. And lastly it's not for arachnophobes. So this isn't a flow. But more of a fair warning, if you really don't like spiders, this movie might wreck your nerves. So what are we left with after the bites, the bodies and the blood? Vermin is a film about spiders and it follows all the gender codes, but in reality it's a film about society, about what grows when a place is forgotten, about who gets left behind when help arrives too late. and about how easy it is to fear the symptom instead of the system. Killing spiders may offer survival, but it doesn't solve the infestation, it just delays the reckoning. Thanks for joining me, I'm Georgia and this was the French Cinema Roll. If you enjoyed this small introduction to a French movie, consider subscribing and sharing the episode and I'll see you on the next one. Cheers!
