Review: 'Making Off'

Title: MAKING OFF
Year: 2012
Director: Cédric Dupuis
Writer: Cédric Dupuis
Starring: Olivier Bureau, Jérôme Thevenet, Nathalie Van Tongolen, Mickael Collart, Céline Berti, Sébastien Ventura

I’ve been watching horror movies for years. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things. I like to think that there isn’t much out there that can surprise me, yet I know that’s far from true and the French constantly remind me of this. Every time I sit down and watch a French horror movie it catches me off guard. Cédric Dupuis’ MAKING OFF was no different.

When I sat down to watch MAKING OFF I had no expectations. From the onslaught we know this movie is going to be presented in a ‘documentary’ fashion, or as a ‘making of’ for a horror movie, sort of it. It’s kind of hard to explain but the movie begins with Cédric (Olivier Bureau) talking to the camera explaining his movie.

Cédric simply wants to make a great horror movie. That’s it. He quits his job, gets a camera, and puts all of his resources into making this movie. He decides to film every detail of the process for special features on the eventual DVD release. Early on Cédric releases his friends who will be acting can’t act. This becomes very frustrating. If you’ve ever made an independent film with your friends acting, you understand.

As Cédric becomes more and more frustrating with the whole process he demands more out of his friends and begins to treat them poorly. With they react negatively to this, he thinks everyone is out to get him and ruin his movie. He thinks they’re just jealous. Again, if you’ve made an independent film before, you totally see where Cédric is coming from.

Then something happens. Cédric officially snaps. I mean he loses his shit and MAKING OFF becomes insanely brutal and violent. Even though you can see Cédric getting more and more upset this gory turn does catch you by surprise, makes you jump back a bit. As Cédric says though, every horror movie needs a ‘boo’ moment. Well, MAKING OFF certainly has a few of those.

This movie literally gets insane. Cédric pulls you into the action as he begins to go on a ruthless killing spree. Things get messy. Blood sprays everywhere as heads are smashed, limbs are chopped off and intestines are ripped out. Cédric is no dummy he knows he can’t just kill. To really sale his movie his killer must have a ‘thing.’ I agree with this concept, but I don’t like the ‘thing’ Cédric chooses. You can watch the movie and decide for yourself, but personally I could’ve done with less of this ‘thing.’

What makes MAKING OFF so interesting is that it almost has a light hearted tone to it. For as disgustingly brutal as this film gets, there are a lot of things played up for laughs and it is quite funny at times. A lot of it is a dark comedy, but there is something there a lot of the time they just feels a little light hearted to me. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but it’s very interesting whatever it is.

There are a few different messages that could be taken away from MAKING OFF. Multiple times throughout the film characters discuss what people do these days to get famous and what they would do to be famous. There could be a bit of social commentary in there. Cédric has a nice monologue towards there end in which he talks about the film as a whole and why he did what he did. He says he did because he wanted to. That’s an important line to take away from this film.

The beautiful thing about movies is that there are so many messages and ideas that can be taken away from them regardless of their original intent. Maybe Dupuis has some underlining message he wants everyone to take away from the movie. Maybe he was just trying to be as extreme as he possibly could to jumpstart his career. It really doesn’t matter what Dupuis’ intent was, people are still going to draw their own conclusions.

Lots of people are going to disregard MAKING OFF as simple filth and trash. They’re going to hate it. And that’s fine. There were certainly parts I wasn’t very fond of. The ‘thing’ I mentioned above was in the movie a lot and I really didn’t like that at all. Still I think MAKING OFF is a good horror movie with a lot to offer. You can take it as a film with a serious message about our society and what we do for fame. Or you can look at it as a horror movie that is a gory fun time just because it wants to be. It can be multiple things and that’s precisely what makes it so enjoyable.

Rating: 4/5

*MAKING OFF is currently available on DVD, Bluray, and most digital platforms from Apprehensive Films. Please visit TheGrindHouse.net for more information.