Oh God, this movie is fun. Where to begin?

To start, I should say this is a Gasper Noe film. For those not in the Noe, (bad pun) he is indisputably one of the most unique and boundary pushing filmmakers working today. His prior filmography includes extremely divisive cult-classics Irreversible and Into the Void.

It was also the last film I saw in 2020 and help to end the year with a bang.

If you like edgy art house cinema, Climax is must-see material. It is modern horror at its finest, though in truth, you can debate whether it really is a horror film at all. It is also his least controversial to date, though I would not necessarily call it his most accessible. And it is great!

Climax is a film about a hired dance crew that have rehearsed together for three days in an abandoned school. The film starts by showing us V/H/S clips of the audition interviews with the dancers on an old television set, and then leaps forward in time to the farewell party. We learn that the dancers have been working together for three days and are ready to unwind, and man, do they know how to party. (I know I would not be able to hang with them.) But problems begin after we learn that, unknowingly, the sangria has been spiked with L.S.D. and pretty much everyone had some. Not cool! From there the party descends into pure chaos. Some fair better than others and get to enjoy their high. But for the others…

Climax is crazy. When the nightmare starts, anybody who has ever been, or seen, the completely wasted can recognize aspects of this behaviour in the actions of the characters. This is as believable onscreen as I have ever seen meta-stoned get, even if it does falsely exaggerate a true story from 1996 to deadly proportions. Generally, I am not a big fan of seeing people on drugs, particularly hallucinogens, depicted on screen. But Noe chooses to never show us hallucinations, just people’s actions, so there is less of a chance for people in the audience to grumble that getting high does not feel like that. The actors/ dancers where also shown footage of real people on LSD before filming and this lent an authenticity to their performance.

By not filming the hallucinations, Noe is able to shoot his decent into madness in one continuous 40-minute, seemingly real-time, take that makes us voyeurs to the mounting chaos. He also never spends too much time following one character, which helps us witness the development of various side stories. There is the ex-dancer mother, now turned choreographer, who tries her best to protect her son while her own high keeps worsening. There is an overprotective brother who interferes way too much in his sister’s life. There is one extremely sought-after female dancer (Sofia Boutella, who is afforded the most screen time) caught between her mounting fear of her surroundings and just letting loose. And there is an obsessive male krumper who stalks her a bit too much. And in the background, we see a lot of sex, the use of violence as entertainment, and more than a few bad trips.

Noe’s choice of dancers as the subject for this film is brilliant. Dancers are by nature sensual people. And attractive. Early on, the film establishes a link between drugs and the European dance scene before inviting us to take part in a subculture of horny alpha-humans all vying for the spotlight. Gay, straight, bi. White, Black, Muslim. The cast is impressive in its representation and the first half does a really good job establishing who the characters are in this ensemble. We get to hear snippets of conversation that are more in line with an edgy art-house sex comedy than a horror film. In actuality, Noe asked the dancers to improvise most of these conversations, which is partly why the dialogue comes across so naturally despite the fact that the dancers collectively lack acting experience. (It is also why the slang in the conversations is more 2018, than 1996.) These conversations are even so thoroughly entertaining that they risk overshadowing the coming terror and depending on how you respond to the film’s second half, they admittedly might. But most importantly, it shows that this is clearly not a group of people who should be taking hard core hallucinogens, which in truth, the real dancers never had done before…but this is a film set in the 1990’s, so we can suspend belief and assume the dance scene back then must had been a whole lot wilder.  

And the dance scenes are surprisingly entertaining as well. The combination of a leading auteur filming a group of krumpers and voguers is inspired. As a cinematographer, Noe often ascends his camera upwards, probably with the help of a crane, so he can shoot down at the action, making his ensemble number, and the later solos, have a much different look than the routines found on television dance competition shows. The dance numbers here have the look of young professions showing off, so there is a rawness to it that is refreshing and works well in the party setting.

Climax is a film that only Gasper Noe could make, and we are the better for it. Its an experience, so I would not look to hard for a deeper meaning. (I compare this to looking for meaning in Pulp Fiction. You could do it, but did you really?) I do, however, suggest- and I almost would never suggest this- you see this one a little intoxicated yourself because Noe is one of the best at making films for those who like to watch films a little high. (Just stay off the LSD.) This is a true Midnight Movie. Noe’s films may not be horror movies, at least in the traditional sense, but he has been rightly embraced by the horror community for making wildly innovative films that depict situational horrors that are often relatably human and the product of ironically bad luck. Since the start of this century, horror has been continually employed by visionary independent directors who have helped to redefine the genre. Climax is another example of how ground-breaking modern horror has been and it is an example of cinema at its finest.