Common Sense Media Review
By Brian Costello
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Blood, disturbing imagery, language in French horror movie.
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The Swarm
What's the Story?
In THE SWARM, Virginie (Suliane Brahim) is a single mother struggling to provide for her teen daughter, Laura (Marie Narbonne), and young son, Gaston, on a farm in the south of France. Facing foreclosure in the aftermath of her husband's suicide, she's now trying her hand at raising locusts to be used as an alternative source of protein. Her only friend in the region is Karim (Sofian Khammes), a North African immigrant who has found success as a winemaker; he's helping to support Virginie and her kids in return for the kindness she showed him when he arrived in France. While Laura is bullied at school for having a mother who farms locusts and Gaston wants to attend a soccer camp that Virginie cannot afford, the locusts aren't breeding at profitable levels, and Viriginie is undersold by the potential buyers Karim sends her way. Virginie is on the verge of cutting her losses and moving her family somewhere else, but one day, she discovers that the locusts have a thirst for blood. She begins ordering gallons of blood from the local blood bank and feeding it to the locusts, and soon they begin to thrive. Virginie expands her operations, buys a scooter for Laura, and can now afford soccer camp for Gaston. But the hours have grown longer, the work is increasingly exhausting, and, when the blood bank stops their deliveries, Virginie must find new sources of blood so that her farm can remain profitable. As Virginie's behavior grows increasingly erratic and her exhaustion increases, Laura and Karim grow increasingly concerned -- and their concern leads to a shocking discovery.
Is It Any Good?
This is a French horror movie with brilliant execution and a thoughtful message that's slightly marred by stale horror movie tropes and predictability. The Swarm (not to be confused with the cheesy '70s bees-gone-bad movie The Swarm) goes to great lengths to construct the world and the lives of the characters. Virginie is a single mother trying to provide for her family while also living up to environmentalist ideals by raising locusts as an alternative protein source to meat. But her teen daughter hates everything about where they live, and her young son just wants to attend a soccer camp that Virginie cannot afford. What emerges from this structure and slow-burn suspense is, beneath the ever present and oh-so-creepy buzzing of the locusts, a comment on the exhausting lengths people go to -- particularly single mothers in a capitalist and patriarchal society such as the one depicted in the movie -- in order to provide for their families, even if it means becoming, in this case quite literally, "consumed" by their work.
Unfortunately, there are more than a few horror movie tropes and plot points of banal predictability that not only prevent this from being better but also seem unnecessary: jump scares, a nightmare involving locusts, nosy neighbor characters, pets, and animals whose fates don't require much guesswork. These moments slow down what's already a slow build, and while it's fun to experience the playfulness of dashing expectations as we wonder early on in the movie whether teen bullies and condescendingly sexist farmers are going to meet a satisfyingly gory fate once the titular swarm is unleashed into the world, these moments ultimately feel either like story threads that go nowhere or else flabby exercises in character development. Still, this commentary, paired with the nightmarish sounds of the locusts not only buzzing but also thudding into tarps by the hundreds, will linger long after the movie is over, and there's enough Hitchcockian menace to make The Swarm stand out from standard horror fare.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about horror movies like The Swarm. How does this compare to other horror movies you've seen?
What commentary does this movie seem to be making about topics like sexism, racism, and how people can be (in this case literally) "consumed by their work" in order to survive and provide for their family?
What are some other examples of horror movies in which animals or insects go out of control and attack humans? Why do you think there's an appeal for these kinds of movies?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : August 6, 2021
- Cast : Suliane Brahim , Marie Narbonne , Sofian Khammes
- Director : Just Philippot
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Horror
- Topics : Family Stories ( Siblings ) , Animals ( Bugs )
- Run time : 101 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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