There is something about how the French make their horror films that I find a bit hard to resist. Films like High Tension, Inside, and Martyrs are films I go back to time and time again and just have a blast with, and with the release of MadS I was a bit optimistic that this could also be a film to add to my rotation when I’m on a French horror film kick. What really gave me hope for this film is seeing that it was directed by David Moreau, who gave us the criminally underappreciated home invasion horror film Them (2006). If you are a fan of home invasion horror and you’ve missed on Them, I highly recommend checking it out. As for MadS, it seems Moreau was going for something a bit different, this time doing a one-shot horror film about a virus outbreak that causes those infected to go “mad” and violently attack people. Sure, we’ve seen it before, but is the one-shot approach a fresh enough take to make this an experience worth sitting through?
Romain (Milton Riche) is a teenager who is celebrating his birthday and before heading to a party meets up with his drug dealer and partakes in a questionable substance. Everything seems fine till on his way home he comes across a woman who appears to be in distress, and things quickly spiral out of control from here when she savagely stabs herself. High out of his mind and with a presumed dead woman in his car, he continues to go home and leaves the girl with his car in the garage. Now early on with this film I felt maybe this is all some kind of bad hallucination this guy is on, and perhaps that is all this film is meant to be, but the film does shift gears by following other characters till it reaches its bleak conclusion.
A major complaint I have with the film is that it really takes a while to explain what is happening to these characters who seem to be infected and have violent outbursts. We get some clues along the way, but because this film doesn’t necessarily set up the rules behind this virus like in the 28 Days films, we just have to kind of go along with everything. The shifting of the characters is one of the film’s strengths, though, and it is interesting to see how they react to the situations that they are thrown into.
While I’m a fan of the one-shot approach, with this film it does make certain things a bit harder to accept when it comes to how much is occurring within such a short amount of time. Like, are we supposed to believe so many are infected even when the injured girl was at the home for a good portion of the film? Then there is the military response; it seems a bit too well coordinated as well as a bit of overkill given the limited passage of time. That being said, having all this happening in a short amount of time does add a level of intensity to the story, and when the chaos begins, it doesn’t let up till the credits start.
Now a complaint I had with the film’s style is how we get to see these characters, and with Romain being the focal point for the first half of the film, he’s not exactly a likeable guy, and the more we know about him, there’s less to like. Then there is Julia (Lucille Guillaume), whom we meet and we discover is pregnant with Romain’s child. Personally, I wish Julia was introduced sooner into the story since she is a far more likable character even though she has some flaws of her own, but at least she’s someone the audience can care about.
There are some really good moments in this film, but sadly it isn’t enough to really say this film stands out from the many other films like it. I mean, you have a movie like The Sadness (2021); that film set the bar for films about viruses that cause people to turn violent. MadS just seems so tame when compared to other films in the sub-genre, and I feel sticking to the one-shot approach just limited the film creatively and story-wise. This isn’t a bad film; it is certainly entertaining, but sadly a little forgettable, though at the end of the day, it’s a fun 90 minute ride for some late night viewing.
MadS is streaming now exclusively on Shudder.
