Inside (A l’intérieur) (2007)
Review by the Fiend of Grue
Four months after a tragic automobile accident that claims the life of her husband, Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is left alone and pregnant. On Christmas Eve she is told that she will have the baby the next day. After leaving the hospital, she goes to a nearby park where she longs to be like the family she photographs: Happy, full of joy and together, but instead the expectant mother if left with a tremendous void with Mattieu (Jean-Baptiste Tabourin) being dead.
Sarah’s chief editor and friend Jean Pierre (Francois-Regis Marchasson) agrees to pick her up in the morning to take her to the hospital to have her baby. She gives him the keys to her apartment and heads home for the evening. At home, Sarah plans to sit back to a relaxing evening when suddenly there is a knock at her door. She can’t see who it is through the peephole of her door and the stranger on the other side (Beatrice Dalle) is asking to use the phone because she is broke down and is afraid to stand outside for fear of the nearby political riots that are taking place. Sarah doesn’t like the sound of it and lies to the woman and tells her that she can’t come in because her husband is asleep and she’s afraid she’ll wake him if she comes in. Sarah quickly breaks into a near panic when the strange woman tells her “Your husband is dead, Sarah” and begins pounding on the door. When Sarah says she’s calling the cops, the knocking stops.
Soon after, the woman appears at a window so Sarah does in fact call the cops and while she’s waiting on them she takes some pictures of the woman. The police arrive and search the entire place, finding nothing. The pictures do no good because they are too dark but they reassure Sarah that whoever it was is gone and she’ll be okay now.
Feeling a lot better after the cops leave, Sarah soon nods off and in the meantime, the woman gets in the house. After taking her time observing everything in the place, the woman grabs a pair of scissors and attacks Sarah in her sleep, going right for her stomach. Sarah manages to get away but not before she is cut and bleeding pretty badly. What transpires from here is filled with more tension and more gore than most movies would dare to attempt. As Sarah barricades herself in her bathroom, her water breaks meaning that not only does she now have to content with a homicidal maniac, but her baby is trying to come into this world.
Inside (or À l’intérieur in its native French) comes to us stateside from Dimension Extreme who bought out the U.S. rights to the film from the France imprint, La Fabrique de Films. This is the first of many Dimension Extreme films that I have seen that truly lives up to the “Extreme” label and it’s one of the rare cases anymore of a film being truly “Unrated.” There is no way in hell, outside of the daring art house theaters, this movie would ever be played in theaters across America without a certain right wing Conservative backlash the likes of which haven’t been seen in years.
When one thinks of a gripping horror film from a specific country, France is usually not the first place that comes to mind, but that is quickly and deservedly so, changing. With the knock out punch of High Tension in 2003 and now the equally enthralling French releases of Them (aka Ils – read review) and Inside, France seems to be the new leader in groundbreaking horror. The pale ghost face frights that Japan brought to us for a period of time have gone stale and American horror cinema seems to be slumping along with remake after remake, but France on the other hand is kicking ass and taking names! Call me unpatriotic, but France is handing our ass to us as far as horror films go and Inside is prime example of this.
From the opening shots of a bloody car wreck, the film starts out with gory imagery that is the precursor for much more to come. Co-directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury weave the story together brilliantly by only taking a small fraction of time in utilizing the pain and mourning that Sarah is going through by losing her husband at such a time of need. Alysson Paradis is amazing in this role and does a superb job at drawing you into her emotional state. In turn, the things that transpire to her from this point on, only adds to the emotional attachment that you get for this character.
Her female attacker, played by Beatrice Dalle, is just as good if not better, in the role of a psychotic woman who will stop at nothing to complete her motive for the attack. One by one, she offs all of the would-be rescuers in increasingly brutal and sadistic ways. Alert to all of the male viewers in the crowd: be prepared to squirm in your seats at one particular scene involving the groin area and a very large pair of scissors! OUCH!
The amount of gore in this movie is at a level that is rarely seen and the thing about it is that it’s not done to the point of being comedic or too much, but the filmmakers use it at all the right times for a very effective punch to the gut. There is a scene in this movie that is guaranteed to make you reach for the rewind button because of the suddenness of it and just how crazy it looks. You’ll know what I mean when you see it. The kill scenes in this movie are true no holds barred and brutal times ten. Not one kill scene in this movie looks fake or poorly done and the best part is that they are almost completely practical effects (although the film could have done without the CG baby in the womb cutaway shots). You think High Tension was graphic, think again. The thing I might also add about the violence in this movie – and there is a shitload if you haven’t already figured that out – is that it’s not just there without a purpose. It’s not just violent to be violent but it all serves the brutality of the storyline well. Sure some of it is hard to watch, even for me, but it all has its place here.
Another wonderful aspect of this movie is the lighting. This has got to be one of the best lit movies I’ve seen in sometime. It has a dim, almost rusty look to it that I’ve never seen before and some of these scenes would even rival Argento in terms of feel and execution, it is that damn good.
There has been quite a buzz going around for this movie and after seeing it, I can see why because it lived up to it for me. I don’t want to over-hype this thing and leave people to be disappointed when they see it, but if your looking for a tense, edge of your seat gorefest that makes you remember why you like horror movies to begin with, then I don’t see how you could go wrong here.
Supposedly Blockbuster’s version of this movie has been severely cut, leaving out 7 minutes of the film. I’d like to know what exactly they left in it because the movie is only 82 minutes in its uncut form, so needless to say, STAY AWAY from the Blockbuster version of this movie (Netflix has the UNCUT version). But the funniest thing about this whole situation is that I bought this movie at none other than fucking WALMART! Yeah…Walmart has this movie uncut for $14.99! I’m sure ol’ Sam Walton is spinning in his grave over that one but if your going to get it, get it fast because I’m sure when they realize what they’re selling, it will be yanked for sure.
Get inside Inside today!
Available from Amazon
Check out the French trailer for Inside:
Popularity: 5% [?]
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