Shudder Sunday: MadS (2024)

The rare film that delivers from creative concept to masterful execution, “MadS” is a thrilling and terrifying one-take nightmare.

If I told you the plot of MadS, you’d yawn and shrug and swear you’ve seen it a million times before.

You’d be wrong.

And if you weren’t tuned into the film’s significant buzz out Fantastic Fest, where it made its splash world premiere, then you might simply scroll past this unassuming foreign zombie film on Shudder.

That would be a mistake.

Most of the profuse praise for MadS centers around writer-director David Moreau’s use of a single take to immerse viewers in a real-time descent into adrenaline-fueled chaos. It’s a wildly impressive feat but far from the film’s most laudable achievement.

Where Moreau really wows is not in the technical mastery required to pull off such a tricky execution but in how well this risk pays off in a richly rewarding and intensely investing viewing experience.

Far from feeling like a gimmick or a style-over-substance affair, the creative approach combined with potent performances from the cast results in an unnervingly real and terrifyingly tense thrill ride.

It’s the kind of tension that will twist your stomach in knots.

From the word go, Moreau puts his foot firmly on the gas and never slows down.

Brilliantly told from the perspective of a trio of teens who can’t quite be sure if what they’re experiencing is real or a devastatingly bad drug trip, the film follows Romain (Milton Riche), his girlfriend Anaïs (the spellbinding Laurie Pavy), and her best friend—and Romain’s secret love interest—Julia (Lucille Guillaume).

The wealthy, entitled Romain is our point of entry into the unfolding nightmare. Though he’s not someone we’re immediately inclined to like, Moreau masterfully invests us in his plight through the forced POV.

He becomes sympathetic as we must walk in his shoes during his increasingly harrowing ordeal.

The film begins on his birthday as he scores a quick fix and pops a mystery pill from his drug dealer before heading to a party. His blissed-out joyride takes a disturbing turn when he picks up an injured woman on the side of the road. Bandaged and unable to speak, she’s behaving erratically—desperate and distraught.

There is strong evidence she escaped from an institution where she was the subject of cruel experiments.

The situation becomes increasingly volatile until the mystery woman turns violent, apparently taking her own life. Too afraid to call the cops while high, he takes the woman back to his home until he can figure out what to do next.

Covered in the woman’s blood, he showers and changes clothes. After he returns to the body, it has disappeared. In an exaggerated state of fear and confusion, he leaves the house and heads to the party.

Soon, his mental state begins to deteriorate, causing him to become more agitated and aggressive.

As the horror of the night escalates, we shift perspectives two more times.

First, we follow an infected Anaïs as she stumbles out into the city, feeling the mind-altering effects of whatever is coursing through her blood. She shifts wildly between bouts of unhinged madness and lucid moments of confusion and terror.

As the infection takes over, she begins to twitch in a sublimely physical performance that ranks among the most shudder-inducing. Pavy is extraordinary in her riveting segment.

When her path collides with Julia during a traumatic scooter ride through a locked-down city, she gets left to fend for herself by her terrified friend.

Now, it’s the newly pregnant Julia’s story, and she leads us with gut-wrenching aplomb into the film’s bleak and apocalyptic final act — with armed government officials desperately trying to contain the rapid spread of the infection with a “shoot first and ask questions later” mentality.

Moreau, who previously penned and helmed the chilling home invasion horror THEM(aka ILS, 2006), demonstrates his deft ability to maximize nail-biting suspense from the simplest premises.

The decision to limit perspective and refuse the cutaway creates a feeling of inescapable doom. Like our characters, our understanding of what’s happening is limited, and it’s easy to empathize with their disoriented anxiety.

The gore is limited, but the fear is palpable in this must-see exercise in immersive horror.

MadS succeeds as an innovative, nonstop exercise in tension and terror — anchored by spectacular performances, a hypnotic score, and compelling storytelling.