Returning to the States from a friends wedding in Canada a car full of young friends runs into trouble with the border patrol. Two unforgiving cops subject them to a rather aggressive stop and search resulting in the inevitable drug find and the shocking unprovoked shooting of one of the group. The night of misery does not end there as the two cops are revealed to be imposters and the group find themselves interned in a replica of Guantanamo Bay and it's now infamous torture techniques. it may not be the most subtle political statement made by a horror movie but it certainly serves as a sharp reminder of humanities misguided attempts to maintain the status qui by harming others.
TERRITORIES carries a French pedigree with it's director and production team as well as being a Canadian/French co-production and despite its lack of subtitles it very much belongs in the grim bleak ouvre of French horror with some nasty extreme torture sequences and an unconventional narrative approach where the third act is almost an entirely different film. The film makers also adopt an unusual approach to the deaths of the characters as one by one they are forgotten about and they slip from memory. Sometimes people are just forgotten about and that may be a tough selling point to those who do not like ambiguity in a movie.
Brutal, bleak and quite brilliant the only proviso I would ask for when Arrow Video release this in the UK is please do not change the title to CHECKPOINT I'm still annoyed at SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE!
Full on hard on for TERRITORIES.
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