Filmed on location in splendid French rural landscapes ,"Derrière Les Murs" spares us special effects,monsters,gore ,and we should be grateful just for that;this is actually hardly a horror and fantasy movie .The music and the treatment are deceptive;so is Casta's performance,whose face remains mysterious and inscrutable,a la Nicole Kidman in "the others" she often recalls ,particularly in the scene her pupil reads "the little red riding Hood" (which is nothing but a wrong track).
As a psychological drama,the ending makes sense ;as a horror flick ,it must have disappointed its audience .When she wanders through the darkness of the basement,the heroine is actually in search of herself :although she has an affair with a man who tries to help her ,she remains a stranger in a land where she is an intruder .
The movie is essentially diurnal ,except from some lovely scenes such as the villagers' torches ,dots of lights searching the blackness of the night.
Roger Dumas,who played the part of Gabin's son in "Rue Des prairies"(1959) ,appears as an old priest.
