La Nuée (or The Swarm for the English title) is certainly not bad but it could have been better. I thought there were some different unexploited options that could have made this movie much better but overal it's worth a watch. The whole cast did a good job playing their characters, so no bad acting here. Like always I would watch this movie in its original language, French that is. Dubbed movies always lose from their authenticity, but that's only my opinion.

Not sure what I was expecting from this one but it wasn't this. The 12 certificate rating should have given the game away. Not a monster movie and as far away from a similarly plotted SyFy Channel movie that you can get. Instead this is a French independent drama about a woman breeding locusts who becomes obsessed with them. Unappealing characters and a dearth of interesting moments make this a real chore to sit through, despite a few sinister moments. They think loud locust noises on the soundtrack are frightening but they're really not. Surprised Netflix bothered picking this up.

This French film is centred on Virginie Hébrard; a young widow with two children who is struggling to making a living farming locusts. Things aren't going well; the locusts aren't breeding as well as planned and because of the unusual nature of what they farm her children are picked on at school. Just as she is thinking of giving up she makes a discovery... her locusts thrive when fed blood. The business starts to expand so Virginie will have to find more sources of blood.

I must say this wasn't the film I was expecting... but I wasn't too disappointed. It gets off to a fairly slow start as we watch Virginie struggling to keep her farm going. Even after she discovers that the locusts have a taste for blood it takes a while before anything unpleasant happens. That doesn't mean there are no tense moments before that point; more than once it looks as if things are going to turn bad before they really do. The cast which is fairly small does a good job; most obviously Suliane Brahim Who plays Virginie and Marie Narbonne and Raphael Romand who play her children. The special effects are pretty good. Overall I'd recommend this although some may find the family drama a bit excessive and the horror somewhat lacking.

These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles.