In 1999, two very different horror films were unleashed onto audiences. Both were postmodern takes on contemporary folklore. Both involved young people getting lost in the woods. Both drew heavily from folktales by the Brothers Grimm. Both were products of their time and thus reflect their respective society's anxieties. Both have notoriously bleak endings. Both were far cries from what the multiplexes were offering. Both were influential in spawning two new modes of storytelling. Yet The Blair Witch Project was heavily marketed as a horror film and remains a landmark in the found footage genre while Criminal Lovers stayed mostly in arthouse theaters due to its frank sexuality as well as its refusal to stay within genre conventions. As a result, Criminal Lovers never got proper attention that it deserves in forming French New Extermity's roots.

Honestly, the film feels what would happen if you spliced in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre halfway through Badlands. This isn't the only cinematic influence that Criminal Lovers borrows from to tell its certified messed-up tale of doomed lovers running from the law. Echoes of The Night Of The Hunter and Salo are present in the film as the couple go down a river in a boat before being captured by a sadistic man in the woods. Every torturous taboo imaginable is broken to the point that you realize that Hansel and Gretel got off easy compared to what Alice and Luc suffer through.

That's where the film's strengths lie in its willingness to play with genre conventions and to break the boundaries of good taste. One minute, it's a high school melodrama with murder thrown in for good measure; the next minute, it's a subliminal torture porn that would make Eli Roth run away in complete terror. I won't spoil the horrors but they gave this hardened viewer pause in disbelief.

This gives Criminal Lovers a much more transgressive artistry than Blair Witch Project ever could- it's a fractured fairy tale as envisioned by a hellish-but-dreamlike collaboration between the Marquis De Sade and Jean-Luc Godard. Even better, you get two fantastic performances from both Natacha Regnier and Jeremie Renier that supply the film with a desperate rawness that's only matched by the young people suffering in Larry Clark's films.

Alice and Luc are in love but Luc is unable to fully consummate their relationship. One day Alice claims she was gang-raped by a bunch of boys led on by one of Luc's schoolmates. Her and Luc plan to kill the boy and dump the body...but things take a disastrous turn.

OK it doesn't SOUND like "Hansel and Gretel" but that does kick in during the second half of the film. The film is disturbing--it contains some extreme violence, cannibalism and in your face sex scenes. I spent most of the film being really sickened but I gave this some space and...slowly...I THINK I understand what it's saying.

EXTREME SPOILER!!! Alice and Luc are kidnapped by a woodsman who locks Alice in the basement and proceeds to sexually seduce Luc. Also it's made clear that Alice lied about being assaulted--they kill someone for no reason at all. Also it's shown that Luc likes having sex with the guy. At the end Alice is punished (killed) for her sins and Luc is led away pleading for the police not to harm the woodsman. This film seems to be about a young man becoming aware of his sexual orientation. Also it shows the hetero relationship in a very negative light while the gay one is shown matter of factly. Is it saying gay is better than straight? As I gay man I find this quite fascinating. END EXTREME SPOILER

This is not for everyone--the extreme violence and sex is going to disturb most viewers--but I found it fascinating. I can truthfully only give it a 7--I can't say I enjoyed the film but it did make me think.

Alice a young student in France, is a tease. She loves to flirt with one athletic youth who appears to be of Arab descent, Said. This young student likes Alice, but she plays hard to get, and for all purposes, she has a thing in mind for him. Luc, another student, likes Alice as well, but he is too shy to act on his instincts. This girl is bent in getting her revenge on the more confident Said and she enlists Luc to be the one that will carry it for her. After Alice insinuates herself to Said, Luc appears on the scene and stabs his rival to death.

Luc and Alice have to dispose of the body and for that they must take him away. For that, Luc has borrowed his father car and the body is taken to a forest to be buried. Unknown to them, they are being watched. The killers lose the way to the car, but they find a lonely cabin that appear to he empty. Little prepare them when a strange man comes into the hut and overpowers them to a filthy lower part of the house.

The man has plans for the couple. When Alice plead with this person by offering sex for their freedom, he tells them he likes his boys fattened and his girls thin before he eats them. With that, it is clear it is Luc who is the chosen one to fulfill the forest man's own sexual appetite. Luc in fact, is sexually turned on by this crude man in ways one did not expect. When they eventually overpower the ogre, and only then, they engage in sex as the animals of the forest surround them in a sort of Disney reverie.

Francois Ozon, one of France's best new directors, wrote this film of 1999 with the idea of perhaps retelling the fairy tale story of "Hansel and Gretel". The story parallel the children's narrative with a more menacing and cruel reality. Mr. Ozon's version clearly shows that it is Luc who is the one that awakens to the kind of sex that he has lusted for, but never was able to get. The film has a little bit of everything including cannibalism that comes into play in this update of a Grimm's brothers tale.

The excellent Jeremie Renier, who has worked repeatedly with the Dardennes Brothers, clearly demonstrates he is one of the most interesting actors working in Europe today. He is perfect as Luc. Natacha Regnier, a beautiful actress, is seen as Alice, the calculating girl too sure of what she can do to the more impressionable Luc. Miki Mnojilovic does a good job impersonating the strange man of the woods.

"Les amants criminel" is obviously not for the great masses, but it will reward Mr. Ozon's fans in unexpected ways.