Fantasia Fest 2023 Review – Vincent Must Die (2023)
In Vincent Must Die, Vincent is just an ordinary guy doing an ordinary job who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. Without warning, members of the general populous have become hellbent on snuffing him out. This quirky, sometimes queasy, genre potpourri from France is an intense blast of horror movie paranoia and a touching anthem for derailed romance.
Recently dumped by his girlfriend, Vincent is shocked when an office intern goes postal and violently assaults him. Soon after, a normally mild-mannered colleague stabs him repeatedly in the arm with a pen. He is advised to work from home whilst his assailants remain in situ, a bizarre managerial decision that cements both Vincent’s demeanor as an unconfrontational everyman and indeed this film’s cravings for the absurd. It is also the first cynical shot across the bows of a film itching to scratch away the scabs of a global society in crisis.
Once Vincent becomes spooked enough by the random assaults he becomes a virtual prisoner in his own apartment and sets about trying to make sense of his predicament. He knows that people he encounters turn into assassins through eye contact and that’s about it. However, when his neighbour’s young kids force him to use physical measures against them the resulting fury leaves him with no choice but to make a break for it. And so Vincent decamps to a secluded family abode. A decision that drops him quite literally in deeper shit.
The central premise of Vincent Must Die is intriguing in its simplicity. Because the viewer has to figure out what the heck is going on at the same pace as the protagonist the first section of the film is consistently tense and engaging. The what would you do factor is strong as is the intense paranoia we are compelled to experience through Vincent’s hapless struggles.
A glimmer of hope comes in the form of a disheveled hobo who used to be a professor and is suffering the same constant abuse as Vincent. He can shed no real light on the origins of the phenomenon but gives him some useful tips such as getting a dog as they can act as a kind of impending violence canary. He also gives him the instructions for going off-grid and the details of a shadowy online community of others in the same battered boat.
Everyday life becomes a survival test, even with a newfound canine companion. In order to eat, Vincent pretends to be disabled so his fast food order can be carried out to him. It is through this deception he meets Margaux the waitress. A decidedly eccentric free spirit in debt to drug dealers who provides the movie’s love interest. Their relationship becomes the core of the narrative and its progression is sweet, savage, and hilariously kinky.
Although the outbursts of carnage in the film are explosive and pragmatically brutal it rarely descends into farcical slapstick or indeed the outright tastelessness of its shocking thematic stablemate The Sadness. That being said, there is a genuinely stomach-turning brawl in the foul estuary of a leaking septic tank that will give your gag reflex a solid workout.
The virus-based apocalypse film is becoming more than a little tedious. Vincent Must Die, however, retains the power to surprise and engage with a fresh perspective and smartly written and acted characters. Despite a rich vein of absurdist humour and tons of pithy social observation, it retains a grip on tone and narrative texture that enables its nihilistic trajectory to remain consistently entertaining and thought-provoking.
Bizzare, tragically funny, and starkly indicative of the times we live in, Vincent Must Die is a genre movie must-see.
★★★★
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Absurdist, Horror, Thriller | France 2023 | 108 mins| Fantasia Fest 2023 | XYZ films | Dir. Stéphan Castang | With: Karim Leklou, Vimala Pons, François Chattot, Karoline Rose Sun
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