Inside (A L'interieur)

Inside (À L'interieur) (2007)

Directors: Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury

Béatrice Dalle: La Femme

Alysson Paradis: Sarah

There's always a point while watching a film where disappointment washes over me: “There’s only the lame top hated baddie left!?”, “How’s the hero going to finish guns blazing with his hand chopped off and only two toes!?”, “ Did the big baddie shark actually die by choking an apple core!?” Most of the time, the sadness continues through to the end credits; other times, the film pulls a fast one on me. Rarely does a film crush my disappointment, then resurrect it as a disfigured, scissor wielding monstrosity that wants to cut me up to middle to show me how many "optimistic" bits I really have. (Ed. What the hell?)

Still grieving over her recently deceased boyfriend, a pregnant woman is stalked by a murderous woman in her house on Christmas Eve.

“The whole film has two people? In one house? And one of them is pregnant? CRAP! How is this supposed to be so called ‘goriest film of the decade’!?”

‘Inside’ has the M.O. of the usual ‘taut psychological thriller of the week’, but goes completely ape-shit with every type of painful gore gag that you could inflict on a sad sack of human flesh. Directorial/Writer duo Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury don’t shy away from things like completely disfiguring a main character within the first twenty minutes or completely diffusing a dramatic death scene by injecting a hilarious bit of arterial spray. For first- timers, they show off a tight directorial style with a firm grip on mood, pace, and design. The line between splatstick and straight up horror is toed as easily as breathing. Béatrice Dalle as the villain is a nasty mix of childlike rage and pinched ugliness. Alysson Paradis (sister of the singer) is pretty as the pregnant lass who’s threatened for 75 minutes with a pair of nasty scissors. Everyone else is meat for the grinder.

I can’t recommend “A L’interieur” (Inside) enough to everyone that likes their horror straight up from actual fans of the genre. No one here is pandering or trying to maximize the blood because they think it’s going to sell, it’s the tonal opposite, they’re putting it up on screen because this is what they love to see in a crowded audience that’ll howl when a head EXPLODES INTO BLOODY BITS!

Inside is now available on DVD from Dimension EXTREME. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, rent the Blockbuster version with 20 minutes (!!!) trimmed from its running time. Buy it instead.