Inside (À l'intérieur)

(2007)


Inside can be used as additional evidence that France is the new Japan of shock horror. It should really come with a bright warning label that reads “DO NOT WATCH IF YOU’RE PREGNANT, EVER HAVE BEEN PREGNANT, THINKING ABOUT GETTING PREGNANT, SQUEAMISH OR MENTALLY UNSTABLE IN ANY WAY.”

Returning home from the hospital, following a car accident that killed her husband, Sarah settles in for a quiet evening, understandably depressed and very, very pregnant. A strange woman knocks on her door asking to use the phone as she’s been in a car accident. Sarah, not falling for the oldest trick in the book, lies and tells her to go elsewhere as her husband is sleeping. “Your husband’s not sleeping”, she replies, “he’s dead”. A few minutes later she appears at her window in full blown Michael Myers mode. For (great!) reasons that are later revealed, the mystery woman will stop at nothing to carve the baby right out of Sarah’s body.

If you took the pregnancy away from the film you’d be left with an above average gory home invasion movie along the lines of The Strangers or Don’t Answer the Door. But the threat to the fetus makes the violence all the more difficult to watch. They actually show the baby’s reaction from the womb as Sarah is being attacked. It could arguably be dismissed as a cheap trick but boy does it ever work.

Like Martyrs (which I absolutely refuse to shut up about), Inside is a beautifully filmed, intelligent splatter fest. The use of heartbeats, feedback and noise is very innovative and effective. Aside from a few inexcusable dumb horror film decisions made by some of the characters, this is a very solid slice of gruesome.