Livid (2011) 

Livide

Directed by: Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo

Sweet-natured teenager Lucie (Chloé Coulloud) goes to work as an intern for Mme. Wilson (Catherine Jacob), helping to look after house-bound old people.  An injection here, a change of diaper there – the visits are brief.  But Mme. Jessell (Marie-Claude Pietragalla) is different. For a start, she’s been in a coma for decades. Then there’s that seriously creepy house she lives in, with its rumoured hidden treasure.  And last, why is she permanently receiving blood transfusions…?

Actually, Lucie is not as sweet as she seems and, after a row with her dad, she decides to go after the treasure with boyfriend Will (Félix Moati) and buddy Ben (Jérémy Kapone).  Bad idea.

Directing team Maury and Bustillo seek to give the vampire genre a new twist and, in doing so, make the story rather hard to follow (what exactly are the powers and limitations of these undead?).  Nevertheless, there are some effective splatter scenes, and it looks very beautiful at times – but overall it needs more tension that it delivers, a problem compounded by the full-on (largely classical) soundtrack, which robs us of silent creepy-house moments.