by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Québécois actors Michel Côté and Patrick Huard have made stars of themselves with their turns in notable provincial dramas and comedies - between them Dans la ventre du dragon, Cruising Bar and Les Boys all carry their mark. With Éric Tessier's Sur le seuil (English title: Evil Words), the two get to tackle the horror movie, and do so with relish as this modern psycho-killer drama unfolds into a solid, effective piece of whatcha might call Québécois Gothic.

A seemingly stable and responsible cop massacres 11 tykes (at the Biodôme, no less). Immediately thereafter, Paul Lacasse (Côté), a shrink on the verge of burnout, gets a star patient. Successful Québécois horror writer Thomas Roy (Huard) has failed at suicide after lopping his fingers off with a paper cropper. Connection? Of course, but it'll take the better part of the film for Docteur Lacasse to overcome his cranky presumptions and uncover the secret, possibly supernatural link.

Based on a novel by Patrick Senécal, Sur le seuil delivers the grim eeriness, the menace and the sudden flurries of graphic gore the genre demands. The film's shortcomings all cropped up in the editing room. It's got these intrusive bursts of noise, aural and visual, that suit the opening credits but only irk and interfere elsewhere. Likewise, Sur le seuil perpetrates what's now a horror-flick sound-edit no-no: the excessive use of nerve-wracking whooshes and such to indicate revelations and twists already obvious and quite effective on their own.

Perhaps Tessier feared that his film would come off cheap and parochial if he failed to employ the tired tricks of the genre. He needn't have worried. Sur le seuil hits the ground running and maintains the pace, carrying a plot that holds water throughout. The eventual unravelling of the mystery still allows for a final, white-knuckle climax and a quick, powerful coda that caps a commendable frightener. The shivers and shudders will stick with you for a while.

Sur le seuil opens Friday, Oct. 3

>> Movie Listings