Thanks to a growing catalog of disturbing short films, François Ozon has been dubbed “the bad boy of French cinema” and his latest, Criminal Lovers, will do nothing but bolster his claim to that crown.  The film is a sick, twisted and, at times, terrifying blend of Natural Born Killers and Badlands, with a little Deliverance and Hansel & Gretel thrown in for good measure.

Lovers opens with a sexually aggressive student named Alice (Natacha Régnier, The Dreamlife of Angels) playing a nasty prank on her impotent boyfriend Luc (Jérémie Rénier).  But this trick isn’t the only one playful Alice has up her sleeve.  She also convinces Luc to help her slaughter an Arab classmate named Saïd.  The scene is graphic and the two killers seem strangely indifferent as they try to clean up the bloody murder scene.  The teens hit the road, with Saïd’s body in their trunk, stopping only to rob a jeweler and exercise the five-finger discount at a supermarket.

The murder occurs about ten minutes into the film, before we really learn anything about either Alice or Luc.  You may begin to scratch your head and wonder who these kids are and what exactly led to this crime spree.  Don’t worry - Lovers is told via flashbacks in this uniquely structured film.  What you might want to worry about is the frightening incident the teens experience upon stumbling on an isolated shack in the woods when they bury their classmate’s body.

Ozon’s cold direction (he also wrote the script) might leave some people shaking their heads and accusing him of attempting only to shock, but you can’t deny that Ozon is a brilliant, stylish filmmaker.  Lovers is only his second feature film, and the world should both anticipate and dread his next project.

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