France / 2018 / 97mins / French / English / English subtitles

The film contains nudity scenes and sexual content.

From the French Extreme Cinema’s figurehead Gaspar Noé (Irreversible, 2002; Enter the Void, 2006; Love, 2015) comes a hypnotic, hallucinatory, and ultimately hair-raising depiction of a party that descends into delirium over the course of one wintry night.

The film takes place in 1996, within a remote and empty school building, features a large ensemble cast of French waackers, krumpers and electro dancers (led by Sofia Boutella) throwing an after-party after a rehearsal. The all-night celebration takes a darker turn when everyone becomes increasingly agitated and confused after consuming sangria laced with LSD. Noé observes crushes, rivalries, and violence amid a collective psychedelic meltdown.

Approaching the material like a documentary and preparing very little in advance, starting from a page-long outline, shooting over two weeks chronologically, the director allows situations to happen in front of him, using the haunting tale of the troupe as a springboard into chaos and let his casts improvise, to display their physical prowess with a jawdropping spontaneity. The very first dance scene was choreographed by Nina McNeely, incredibly dexterous and mesmeric, while in other scenes, dancers are free to express their individual interior turmoil that drove towards ever-more psychotic performances.

Climax, a blazingly original and extremely disturbing film turning psychotropic street dance movie into an orgiastic horror trip.