Frenchman Xavier Gens has marked his name high up in the books of horror and action films with fire and blood. Perhaps you won’t recognize him by the name, but if I mention his debut film Frontière(s) (2007) then you already know what I am talking about. This nightmarish masterpiece was added in the list of films that the media called New French Extremity, where other directors like Alexandre Aja or Pascal Laugier also had their movies Haute Tension (2003) or Martyrs (2008). But Xavier Gens had his eyes more into action with some kind of a political content and he moved to America to continue with his career. And then Hitman (2007) came. The flesh and bones version of the acclaimed videogame starring Timothy Olyphant, Olga Kurylenko was proof that we were in front of a filmmaker who knew what he wanted and how to accomplish it. And although his latest film until date The Divide (2011), starring Michael Biehn, didn’t achieve the expected recognition, it is still a good horror thriller film.
So after a little break, where all we could get from Xavier Gens was a few episodes in the Crossing Lines TV Series (2014) and the segment “X Is for XXL” in The ABCs of Death (2012), now he is back with a film that sounds as one of the most interesting science fiction titles of the season.
Cold Skin (2017) is an english spoken french/spanish production, adapting the successful book of the same name written by catalan Albert Sánchez Piñol. It tells the story of a man who is running away from his past and ends up in a little remote island. The only buildings are the lighthouse and its shed. But surprisingly, there is no one there. This grisly science fiction thriller is starred by Ray Stevenson and filmed in the Canary Islands, Spain, which can provide the perfect landscapes to create the most beautiful photography, and also the creepiest of the environments.
A few days ago the official poster for the film was released. Yes, creepy and attractive, I would say! So we will have to wait until the second half of this year to see the final result of a title that surelly will be one of the most commented movies in the genre film festivals of this season.
