PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 8/16/07)

Now that people seem to have gotten "torture porn," or whatever you want to call it, out of their systems, the door is open for a return to atmospheric horror that appeals to your imagination more than your gag reflex. Them, a small European chiller that has already garnered a lot of buzz overseas, seems poised to kick this door off its hinges. For a while, it works, until it suddenly decides to abandon the "what you don't see is scarier than what you do see" for a ridiculous and ultimately insulting explanatory ending.

Them opens on the right note, with a classic "pre-credits" shocker that sets the mood perfectly: A dark, isolated road in the woods. Heavy rain. A malfunctioning cellphone and a broken-down car. The elements are all there, and Moreau and Palud milk the tension so well that they build anticipation for the movie proper. The directors then introduce Clementine (Bonamy) and Lucas (Cohen), a young couple who live in a stately but desolate mansion somewhere in the wilds of Bucharest. She teaches French at a local school, he spends his days writing a novel. One night, all sorts of "haunted house" things begin happening — loud bangs, lights turning on and off, creaky footsteps. In their growing panic, they catch sight of a hooded figure — or is it more than one hooded figure? — lurking around, and, eventually, in their home.

Moreau and Palud keep the mood at a nerve-jangling pitch, but just when the questions — who or what is terrorizing these people and why — build to an excruciating level, the co-directors flat out give you the answer, and that answer is best described as incredibly lame. Rather than let the questions hang in the air — Them seems to be aiming for the kind of haunting confusion that follows you home like the original Blair Witch Project — the filmmakers instead try and ground the film in "every day horror." The "based on a true story" intro was probably a tip-off, but finding out who "them" are brings up a whole new set of not-scary questions that we don’t want to repeat here because they are a bit spoiler-heavy — suffice it to say that questioning a movie's logic isn't exactly bone-chilling. The final shot strives to be an "Ah-hah!" moment, but instead becomes a "Huh?" Again, to say any more would spoil the film, but Them might want to rethink selling itself as a psychological mindfuck and instead partner with Hostel for some kind of "Eastern European Schoolkids Are Evil" double feature.

— Eric Alt