Film: Inside
Release date: 12th October 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 79 mins
Director: Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury
Starring: Beatrice Dalle, Alysson Paradis, Nathalie Roussel, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Francois-Regis Marchasson
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Momentum
Format: DVD
Country: France
Released in 2007 in its native France, Inside is a continuation of the extreme French horror that the country has been producing since the turn of the millennium. Starring Betty Blue’s Beatrice Dalle and directed by first timers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, Inside is definitely not for the faint hearted.
Opening with a car crash from the point of view of an unborn baby, Inside aims to shock from the get go. Close to giving birth, and home alone on Christmas Eve, Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is confronted by a mysterious nameless woman outside her home.
Claiming her car has broken down; she politely requests the use of a telephone. Sensing something isn’t right, Sarah refuses to let her in. Moments later and the woman is still lurking outside, casually lighting a cigarette and staring at her prey through a glass porch window in one of the most effective scenes in the whole film.
The police arrive to check the property. When they find nothing, they leave with the promise that, whoever she was, she won’t come back, and that they will make further visits throughout the night. How wrong and somewhat inept they are. It’s not long before the woman returns but this time, she’s inside the property. Who is she? What does she want? And why is she clutching a pair of scissors?
What first grabs you about Inside is the fantastic, eerily effective atmosphere which builds slowly in the first twenty minutes. The subtle use of the excellent score and the general tone of the film is that of a film that feels real, and is all the more successful for it.
When Sarah is eventually confronted by her tormentor, the directors are keen to keep her in the dark via some unsettling shadowy silhouettes and dark lighting, revealing little but keeping the tension high. When we do see her lurking in the background via some excellent camera trickery, the effect is not lost - she is a creepy figure, deep in voice and tall in stature, and dressed entirely in black.
The two actresses are excellent. Dalle, in particular, is one of the creepiest villains we’ve seen in a long time, able to evoke scares through the use of her eyes and voice alone. Likewise, Alysson Paradis does extremely well, spending most of the film covered in blood and trying desperately hard to evade her captor and protect her baby.
To say Inside is extreme is an understatement. It is simply one of the bloodiest films ever made. Limbs are slashed, heads shot, necks stabbed, and faces burned - and that’s just for starters. Is it shocking? Yes, but in today’s world of ever increasing blood and gore perhaps the effect is not as shocking as it would have been ten years ago. Nevertheless, this is not for the squeamish. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, the film makers go full throttle in a scene that pregnant women in particular will find difficult to watch.
What separates Inside from other gore heavy horrors is how intense and claustrophobic it all is. Most of the action is contained within one house. As we watch Sarah desperately trying to evade her captor, we too as an audience have no escape. There are no cuts to happier events going on elsewhere. The directors simply refuse to offer any relief.
If there is a problem with Inside, it’s the factor that ultimately makes it so memorable. It spends so much effort into grossing us out that, effective as it is, a bit more psychology and interplay between the two leads would have been welcome.
Inside is a must see for horror fans. Violent, raw, and intense, it’s a superbly made home invasion story with excellent performances from the two lead actresses. GY
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