MadS (2024) is a French horror film directed by David Moreau that is filmed completely in one take. The story follows Romain, who stops by his dealer’s house looking to buy drugs before a long night of partying. Willing to try anything, he naively purchases and tries a new experimental drug. Things take a horrific turn as he begins to experience all of its effects.
Content Warnings
Spoiler Warning: This review contains major spoilers for MadS (2024). I recommend watching the film before reading.
Trigger Warnings: This review contains descriptions of drug abuse, graphic violence, and suicide which occur during the film.
MadS Review
MadS is a film that every horror fan should add to their watch-list. Being shot entirely in one take, it’s easy to brush it off as gimmicky, but you’d be doing the film a disservice by doing so. MadS manages to be both interesting and engaging throughout its runtime, something many one-take films fail at. MadS also manages to make Zombies feel fresh, which is a category of horror that many feel is overdone.
The movie begins with Romain (played by Milton Riche) snorting an unknown drug in his dealers house. He takes one last bump, gives his dealer some money, and leaves with a bag of said unknown drug. Romain begins to feel the effects instantly. As he walks back towards his car (technically his dad’s car), he punches and kicks the air excitedly. He gets comfortable in the driver seat and starts cruising down the road. Reveling in this new found high, he laughs and hollers from pure joy, swerving in both lanes with a cigarette in his mouth. He pulls over after getting ash on his dads car seat and quickly cleans it. As the drug settles in his system, he lays down in the front seat in a euphoric daze.
Suddenly, a strange woman covered in bandages appears in front of his car, startling him. She jumps into the car. Romain calls for help, but when told that police are on their way, he hangs up. He decides to drop her off at the hospital to avoid getting caught with drugs. The woman, unable to speak, plays a recording for Romain. In the recording, a man details experiments done to “Subject C39.” He mentions the “extraction of teeth and excision of the tongue and salivary glands.” He also says, “contamination achieved after injections with retrovirus-infected blood.” Romain tells her that he is taking her to a hospital, but she shakes her head in refusal. The woman panics and pulls something sharp out of the glove box, which she uses to attempt suicide.
Already, this scene is absolutely terrifying. As a person who has experienced a bad trip, I can’t imagine the terror Romain was feeling in this moment.
Now covered in blood, Romain rushes home. He quickly closes the garage door, and rushes inside to take a shower. Luckily, his father hasn’t come home yet. Once clean, he returns to the car to find that the strange woman has disappeared. Wondering if this actually happened or if he is just having a bad trip, he begins to spiral. Romain’s girlfriend Ana (played by Laurie Pavy) arrives and notices that he seems off, but he doesn’t tell her anything. A group of Romain’s friends arrive to pick them up for Romain’s birthday party, blasting music and disturbing the neighbors. Romain yells at them to quiet it down, not wanting to bring attention to his house, but they continue. Romain quickly checks their security cameras, but the woman is nowhere to be found. He decides to set up the alarm just in case, and leaves with his friends.
On the way to the party, Romain sits silently, looking aimlessly in all directions. He sees lights flashing from the sky and his hearing becomes delayed in distorted. He starts to hear the same voice from the earlier recording. The voice says “Subject C39, contamination achieved.” Ana asks Romain what’s wrong, thinking that he’s just upset about something. They arrive at the party and Romain still doesn’t say a word to anyone. He walks through the party silently, feeling completely overwhelmed. His friends worriedly ask if he is alright, to which he responds affirmatively. He then decides to hide out in a bathroom.
Romain overhears Ana talking to her friend Julia (played by Lucille Guillaume) right outside. They start snorting lines of the unknown drug Romain bought. Ana notices that Julia has a pregnancy test, and questions her. Julia reveals that she is late, and that she had sex with Romain. Ana, angry from being betrayed by her best friend and boyfriend, storms out of the room. Romain walks out into the room with Julia and they start making out aggressively. Romain’s eyes seem to glow in the dark, and he seems to want to bite Julia. They abruptly stop and Romain walks out. He then receives a call from his dad who still isn’t home. His dad is panicking because he was notified by their security system that someone is in their house.
Romain rushes downstairs where the party is even more lively than before. He runs into Ana, who angrily pushes him away. Romain walks outside when a random guy walks up to him and tries putting his arms around him. Romain pushes the guy to the ground, punching him and beating his head into the ground. Julia rushes in to stop him, but Romain pushes her to the ground and rushes home on a bike.
Romain arrives at home and enters the code, turning off the alarm. He finds the strange woman in their bathtub, stabbing herself in the neck. She gets out of the bathtub and begins crawling towards him. Romain then sees someone in a hazmat suit with a gun looking into his house.
Note: I’m going to refer to them as Hazmat Suits since they appear many times going forward.
He notices more Hazmat Suits walking into the building with a stretcher. They pull the strange woman off screen and execute her. Romain rushes outside and laughs hysterically. He starts growling and snarling, until he suddenly takes a bite out of his own wrist, eating his own flesh. At this point, Romain’s sanity is almost completely gone. This is also the first real sign that he is becoming some a Zombie. He continues walking around aimlessly, when a van suddenly pulls up beside him. Hazmat Suits pull him into the van and drive off, executing him in the process. The van almost hits Ana, who is seen walking by with tears in her eyes. We now switch to Ana’s point of view.
Now, at about the halfway point, I’d like to remind you that this is still the same take. Whoever was in charge of filming seriously did a phenomenal job.
Ana gets into a taxi when she receives a call from Julia. Julia, panicking on the other end, claims to be having a bad trip. She says she’s been hearing and seeing scary things everywhere. Ana, still angry about the affair, yells at her and hangs up. Ana and the driver notice a van following them. The driver pulls over and gets out of the car to confront them. The Hazmat Suits come out of the van and execute him. Ana jumps into the driver seat and drives away in a panic. Once far enough, she jumps out of the van and falls to the ground, where she begins twitching and snarling. The Hazmat Suits catch up and shoot her multiple times, but she continues to run away.
Ana enters a bar where people are partying. She tells them to call the police and warns that people are trying to kill her. Ana walks into the bathroom and looks in the mirror. She begins panicking more as she notices all of the gunshot wounds on her body. She begins talking to herself, telling herself that she’s not crazy and screaming for her mom. Julia calls her again and tells her that there are Hazmat Suits trying to kill her. At the same time, the Hazmat Suits looking for Ana walk into the bar and kill everyone there. She escapes out of the bathroom window, where she begins snarling again. She speaks to Julia again and they agree to meet at a bridge.
Ana begins dancing and humming with glee and attacks two strangers, stealing a bike from one of them. She finally meets up with Ana and they ride away together on a scooter. Ana, sitting in the back continues to lose her sanity. She pulls at Julia’s hair and rubs blood all over her while snarling and laughing maniacally. Ana tries biting Julia’s neck, but Julia knocks her off of the scooter.
Julia drives away as emergency sirens can be heard throughout the city. She receives a call from her mother and pulls over to answer. Her mother tells her that there is something happening in town, and that Alice (Julia’s sister) left her alone. She also says that she’s unable to move her wheelchair. At the same time, Ana can be heard calling for Julia as she catches up to her.
Julia rushes home to try and help her mom. She arrives at the apartment building and gets into an elevator. As the elevator door is closing, Ana tries to rush in but is too slow. Suddenly, the elevator gets stuck, leaving Julia trapped. She hears a frightened man speaking to Ana. The man, seeing her covered in blood threatens to call the cops if she doesn’t leave. Ana tells the man that he smells good and kills him.
Ana, still stuck in the elevator, hears her sister Alice and begs her to open the door. Alice warns her that she needs to leave. Alice can then be heard asking Hazmat Suits for help, they execute her. One of Hazmat Suits knocks on the elevator, asking if anyone is inside. They tell her to turn herself in immediately if she has been in contact with an infected person.
The elevator suddenly begins to work and Ana gets out on the 15th floor where she lives. Here, she finds multiple people severely wounded or dead. She screams for her mother, only to find that she’s being eaten by Ana. Ana growls at Julia and taunts her. Julia rushes away and is caught by by a Hazmat Suit. The Hazmat Suit checks Julia’s teeth and eyes, looking for signs of infection. The Hazmat Suit tells Julia to stay quiet as she searches for Ana. Ana manages to bite the Hazmat Suit, but is then killed. The Hazmat Suit takes off her mask, revealing that she’s a woman, but leaving her name unknown. The woman tells Julia that they’ve been ordered to kill everyone that has made contact with the infected. Thinking that Julia isn’t infected, the woman hands Julia her gun, warning her that she will soon lose control. The woman tells Julia to turn around, and commits suicide. Julia takes a seat by a window and begins laughing maniacally and holding onto the gun. The movie ends showing Julia losing her sanity as bombs are dropped all over the city.
Final Thoughts
This movie seriously blew me away. I knew that it was about a drug., but I didn’t know I was about to watch such a inventive zombie film in 2024. I was worried that the one-take limitation would lower it’s quality, since it creates more challenges during filmmaking. It can make telling a compelling story much more difficult and also has the potential to distract from the plot. I found this to be the opposite with MadS. There were many moments where I forgot that I was watching a one-take film. This was due to me being so immersed in the story and characters. This movie felt like Skins (UK) if they went through a zombie apocalypse. I mean that in the best way possible. All three main actors killed their roles. It is especially impressive when you consider the amount of times that they had to change tone and mood seamlessly. I was also impressed with the amount of locations used in this film. The fact that everyone was always in the right place and the right time is just awesome. The only moment where I felt somewhat “taken out of it,” was when Julia left Ana behind. During this scene, you can hear the camera operators footsteps as they try and keep up with Julia. It’s only for a short moment, but I think some editing to the audio could’ve fixed that. Overall, this was a phenomenal spin on the zombie formula. A drug that infects you with madness is terrifying, and I’d love to see this concept explored further. I’ll absolutely be keeping an eye out for new David Moreau films.