Die introvertierte Nicole lebt mit ihrer Freundin Ruby, die als Camgirl arbeitet und sehr off en mit ihrer Sexualität umgeht, in einer WG in Marseille. Weil es unerträglich heiß ist, verbringen die beiden viel Zeit auf ihrem Balkon und bemerken dabei einen attraktiven Nachbarn. Als die beiden Frauen Besuch von ihrer Freundin Elise bekommen, die etwas Abstand von ihrem vereinnahmenden Mann sucht, kommt es zu einer unerwarteten Begegnung mit dem Nachbarn, der die drei zu sich einlädt. Nach einem wilden Abend wacht Ruby blutverschmiert auf und ein wahrer Albtraum beginnt.

It‘s searingly hot in Marseille and Nicole and Ruby spend as much time as possible on their balcony. When their mutual friend Elise comes around to put some distance between her and her demanding husband, they have an unexpected encounter with their attractive neighbour, who invites them over. Nicole, Elise and Ruby accept the invitation and spend a wild evening with him. When Ruby returns home the next morning covered in blood, the real nightmare begins for the three young women.

Ghost story, body horror, feminist comedy and a freshly minted edition of that very French subgenre, How to Get Rid of a Troublesome Corpse: Noémie Merlant, familiar as a fine actress from Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, packs a good deal into her sophomore feature as director, The Balconettes. The message is essentially Time’s Up, maxxed out to include revenge killings; the medium is Mediterranean color. Sciamma co-wrote the script with Merlant, which may come as a surprise given that this swirl of blood and wackiness, complete with a running gag about a severed penis, is about as far from the restraint of Sciamma’s own films as could be.

The Balconettes is a fearlessly feminist horror-comedy unafraid to explore every corner of the genre. It’s full of gore, lives in a fantastical world, and highlights that all men are a problem. The film opens with an all-too-familiar moment of a woman, Denise (Nadège Beausson-Diagne) living under her abusive husband’s reign. However, before you finish wishing him a speedy demise, his wife decides to end the cycle by ending him. This is when The Balconettes alerts this audience that this will not be the typical long-suffering narrative we see in movies about abuse. Moments later, Denise goes to her neighbor Nicole (Sanda Codreanu) and cannot contain her excitement about what she has done. This is the first of many good-for-her moments and another sign this movie has no interest in being demure.