The Big Picture

Prepare to be terrified by
Infested,
a horror film that will make your skin crawl and your fears come to life.
Director Sébastien Vaniček delivers a unique take on spider horror, using real arachnids for a more realistic and chilling experience.
Beyond the scares,
Infested
explores themes of xenophobia and societal judgment, making it more than just your typical creature feature.

Once upon a time, creature features were a popular subgenre of horror. Everything from Jaws to Cujo to Tremors did big business, along with a lot of more silly entries. We’re looking at you Sharknado! When done right, a creature feature can be terrifying, as the humans must pay for their sins when the animals of the Earth seek their revenge. This year saw the release of the French horror film, Infested, from first time director Sébastien Vaniček. It’s Evil Dead Rise meets Arachnophobia, as a horde of massive spiders takes over a rundown apartment complex. (This is a fitting comparison, as Vaniček has landed a major gig ironically directing an Evil Dead movie). Infested is more than just another overdone CGI fest, but a creepy crawly horror film that will make your skin crawl while it makes you think. Stephen King loved it, giving it his seal of approval on social media, and if you can put your fears aside and give it a chance, you will too.

Infested (2024) In a chilling exploration of survival and fear, a group of friends finds themselves trapped in an isolated cabin, where they must face a mysterious and lethal parasite that threatens their very existence. As the infection spreads, alliances are tested and secrets are revealed, turning their sanctuary into a battleground for survival.Release Date April 26, 2024 Director Sébastien Vanicek Cast Théo Christine , Sofia Lesaffre , Jérôme Niel , Lisa Nyarko , Finnegan Oldfield , Marie-Philomene , Nga Writers Sébastien Vanicek , Florent Bernard Runtime 106 Minutes

‘Infested’ Sets Itself Apart From Other Spider-Starring Creature Features
Spiders scare almost everyone. Even the smallest, most innocent ones can give us the heebie-jeebies if we see one in our home. They’re near alien-like with their long legs, and similar to how we’re wired to be afraid of dolls because of our inability to process their human-like features, it’s hard to process how completely different they are from us. Just as Hollywood has been using our fear of dolls against us for years, so have they been doing with spiders. There’s a reason why you don’t see countless creature features about killer kittens, but there are many about murderous arachnids.

Some spider creature features are better than others, of course. 1955’s Tarantula was among the first, a dated but creepy film. An underrated one is the William Shatner led Kingdom of the Spiders in 1977. More recent entries include 2002’s silly horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks, and this year’s surprisingly effective Sting. The king will always be 1990’s Arachnophobia, starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman, where hundreds of real spiders were used to show a small town and a family under attack.

Infested does something different by not going for the laughs or for the usual heroes of a stereotypical white family under attack in their nice home. Instead, Sébastien Vaniček digs deeper, making its hero a criminal, but not going for stereotypes there either. Kaleb (Théo Christine) is a shoe thief, reselling what he steals to make ends meet in the dilapidated apartment complex he lives in with his sister, Manon (Lisa Nyarko), as the two try to get over the death of their mother. Kaleb is shown to be a good person — not just in how he treats other people, but in how he treats the smallest of creatures — as his room is filled with insects that he keeps as pets, like they were no different from a dog or cat. It’s when he comes across a spider for sale that everything goes to hell, as the spider escapes and lays eggs, which quickly hatch into rapidly growing spiders as big as a person. Oh, hell no.

200 Real Spiders Were Used During the Filming of ‘Infested’

If there’s anyone who should know what good horror looks like, it’s the genre’s master, Stephen King. In a post on Twitter/X, King raved about Infested, saying, “Spiders, some as big as puppies, overrun a French apartment building. Scary, gross, well made.”

Infested gives the viewer the simple but easily effective scares of having someone slowly put their shoe on, not knowing what sits inside, ready to bite. But the film also goes bigger, with spiders jumping at and tackling people, little ones getting under the skin of their human host victims, then bursting out, and in what might be the most pulse pounding sequence, our heroes having to walk through a darkened hallway where the spiders sit in their webs. Infested also works by constantly changing, with every scene showing the spiders bigger than they were before, as if we’re stepping into a new horror movie in every act.

As the spiders grow to impossible sizes, we’re seeing CGI and practical effects creations (please, God, tell me there’s no such thing as a spider the size of a small car!), but before that Infested actually used real arachnids to make the horror look even more real. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Vaniček called spiders “interesting creatures” and spoke of how he wanted to use his movie to show “how complex they are.” To accomplish this, he used 200 real spiders during filming, though thankfully not at the same time. Vaniček explained that he could only film the speedy huntsman spiders for 10 seconds at a time before they quickly grow tired, adding, “You have to understand them, and understand that they are really fragile creatures. They are always afraid and they want to hide. When they are on the floor, they will run and they will seek a place in the shadow.”

1:40 Related This Action Horror Movie Doubles as a Gripping Creature Feature These monsters have more going for them than what lies on the surface.

‘Infested’ Uses a Seemingly Simple Story To Explore Xenophobia

Vaniček’s comments are not meaningless, as he uses his thoughts about spiders to create a deeper meaning with Infested. It’s true that we do treat spiders as these disgusting creatures, when, in truth, they are small and fragile and afraid. It’s how they look that scares us. You could say the same thing about people who look different from us or are from another country. The residents of the apartment complex in Infested are the forgotten and unwanted members of society, and Kaleb, a young man with dark skin who wears a hoodie, a representation of every unjustified fear the privileged have against those different from them. Kaleb is looked at no differently than some of us look at a spider.

The French title for Infested is Vermines (which means “vermin”). So many are guilty of looking at those below us in our perceived hierarchy as vermin, and it happens often in Infested, such as with the angry white male resident who thinks every one of his neighbors is a drug dealer because of how they look, the police who won’t help those inside, or on a bigger scale, how the government let the apartment complex fall into such disrepair to begin with. Vaniček said:

“It was a really interesting way to talk about xenophobia and the people who are judged for how they look or where they come from. I think the spiders are the perfect example, because it’s a really small thing and it’s not dangerous at all but nobody wants a spider in their living room or in the bathroom. They are immediately judged, not because they are dangerous, but because we don’t like their shape and their look.”

Infested not only accomplishes this with how the human characters treat each other, but with the spiders as well. The spider who starts it all is taken from its home against its will and forced to live in the complex. All of the spiders attack only because they feel threatened and attacked first, rather than just being bloodthirsty and mindless; they are simply creatures trying to survive in their new environment. One scene accomplishes this by having a human character come across a spider half their size. If this were any other movie, the person would be immediately killed, but when they decide not to attack the eight-legged being and simply leave it alone, the spider lets them pass. They’re not monsters and neither are our heroes — that’s a big message for a creature feature. Infested nails it, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll stop you from squishing the next spider you see in your house.

Stephen King Has a History of Championing Underrated Horror Movies

You can’t write as many horror novels as Stephen King has without being a big fan of the genre. For decades, even long before social media, King has used his fame to praise movies he loves in hopes of helping them gain an audience. Back in the early 80s, Sam Raimi made a little movie called The Evil Dead. When it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, the master of horror loved it so much that he offered to write a review. His words gave The Evil Dead enough attention that they were able to sell it.

King has praised many big movies as well, raving about classics such as The Blair Witch Project and Night of the Demon, but it’s when he takes time to write favorably about something we might be missing that it matters most. Before they were big box office hits, he spoke about his love for the likes of Smile, X, and Malignant, while also drawing attention to the smaller From and The Rig. It doesn’t even have to be movies everyone else liked for King to push them. That would be too easy. There’s no better example than this year’s Night Swim. It was trashed by critics and received little attention, but King took to social media to write, “It’s like a lost, low-budget Steven Spielberg film from Spielberg’s early period…say, after DUEL but before JAWS.” Wow, you can’t get much bigger than that. Most people probably disagreed with him, but you won’t when it comes to Infested. These spiders and the message they carry will give you nightmares. .

Infested is available to watch on Shudder in the U.S.

WATCH ON SHUDDER