Impure

Writer-director Xavier Mesme’s Impure is a stylishly shot, elevated horror short that possesses a Cronenberg coldness with an Argento atmosphere.

An abandoned building is the setting for the reuniting of star-crossed lovers, Mahé (Inès Spiridonov) and Cristèle (Lula Cotton-Frapier). Clearly delighted yet apprehensive, Mahé questions her about her cold departure and equally secret seclusion. Cristèle, brimming with passion, though conflicted by a deep-seated terror, confesses her religiously fanatical fundamentalist father (Boris Rehlinger) sent her away to be cleansed of her impure thoughts and feelings. Things got more frantic for her when she became linked to another student, mysteriously murdered, for whom Cristèle’s father remains a suspect. Mahé is confused, torn apart by feelings of warning and lust. Cristèle romantically smothers her, with nothing but carnal delights on the menu, having hungered for a lover’s touch whilst held in isolation

“Suddenly, Cristèle’s father arrives, roaming the corridors below. Cristèle bids Mahé to hide…”

Suddenly, Cristèle’s father arrives, roaming the corridors below. Cristèle bids Mahé to hide, then escape whilst she fends off the old man. For Mahé, terror becomes a soundscape as she ducks, runs and hides, closely followed and almost spotted. Yet Cristèle finally keeps her father sequestered for a showdown of wills. As the dust and the screaming settle, Mahé enters the chamber where the girl who she loved has a dark little secret she’s at last ready to share.

Inès Spiridonov and Lula Cotton-Frapier have such great chemistry at the apex of this tiny, lurid treasure. The filmmaker classically stages almost every scene but also ably captures rich, textured images. All’s not well in the garden of innocence. Where once there was love and passion, now grows fear and obsession. What Impure does, magically, is show us how hearts win minds until the minds forego reason, trading it for primal instincts. This is a steamy and shocking slice of short horror cinema.