Inside

À l'intérieur

A car crash brings two women together. The woman with no name (Béatrice Dalle) harbors a rage that motivates her to invade the home of the very pregnant, Sarah (Alysson Paradis), on Christmas Eve, the night before she is to be taken to the hospital for the child birth. Sarah is in for a real night of terror as this psychopath has an agenda, which includes taking her child and murdering anyone that threatens to keep her from doing so.
***½

The movie does start with Sarah still in a mourning period, and you can tell she longs for her husband. There's even a scene where she imagines his embrace of her from behind, a momentary period of warmth that is throttled by the reality of his head hitting the car windshield in the crash that killed him. We hear there's been some rioting that has remained big news and criminality is up, most coming from Sarah's publisher (Sarah is a photographer). It occupies the background of the plot, but soon we're in the home of Sarah where a majority of the film takes place.

What constitutes fostering such rage, and what has determined her to pursue the pregnant young woman she’s after? Whatever it is, she’s willing to go the distance, a pair of scissors and a goal willing to kill for, and no one will stand in her way.

Lean, mean, little meat on the bones, Inside doesn’t pad it out. 75 minutes, with about 60 minutes featuring pure ferocity and pent up aggression that will be perpetrated on poor victims in her path. There’s a story to tell, mind you, and for a savage slasher with a killer so hell bent on taking from a pregnant woman what she believes is hers, the twist is certainly unique. Not just unique, though, original and actually makes sense in that within her mania this killer truly feels that in order to become whole again a part of her taken away must be restored. Or that’s how I looked at the twist. The pregnant woman took something very precious from the killer, and she must secure what has been lost. In order to have what was lost, desperate measures (to put it mildly) must be taken. A pair of scissors (and some maneuvering when her victim’s publisher and mother show up at the house “uninvited”) can do wonders to get closer to the prize. The pregnant woman is in her bed, sleeping so sound she doesn’t hear the killer noising about in the bathroom and attic of her abode, and this victim is so vulnerable she takes a slice to the face and a cut to the bellybutton of her very large stomach before realizing how Christmas this time of year will be unlike any other.

Béatrice Dalle was of much talk when Inside populated the horror scene, with the imdb horror board a buzzing about her character, performance, and the violence meted out towards innocents; she definitely administers the part with the appropriate infuriating frustration during the span when her victim is pinned up and locked in the bathroom. Just a door keeping her from attaining what she believes belongs to her, the killer bangs at walls, stabs the walls with her scissors, crushes a pet cat with her hands, sends off primal screams, Dalle gives her all to the role; I think she leaves her mark in the horror genre, for sure. Her character is something else. Think about it. Alysson Paradis is all pregnant, about to pop, and she has a number of people potentially coming to her rescue. One at a time, each falls. Dalle takes out the publisher, two cops, allows Paradis’ mother to be *removed from the equation* by her own daughter inadvertently, and eventually settles her score. We can throw around force of nature, fierce, force to be reckoned with, and not to be denied as descriptions for her and all would be apt. She faces all types of obstacles that deter from the task at hand, but Dalle finds ways around them (mainly through the slice and the stab; they are efficient if messy; there’s lots of blood folks…).

A lot of the criticism I noticed was directed towards the CGI baby inside the victim’s womb; we get reactionary shots of the baby while its mother is in a state of disarray or terror. Sleeping and interrupted during relaxation. I understood the reason behind it so this decision didn’t necessarily bother me, although I could see why some found the baby’s inclusion a bit weird, if even off-putting (like a murderer attacking a pregnant woman wouldn’t be off-putting enough?). It is certainly a different approach than we’re accustomed to in the slasher genre (unless you include Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, that is…), and we at least see what is so important to the overall grand scheme behind the nightmarish home invasion. But because the baby, even if more realistic than animated babies in the past, doesn’t look necessarily convincingly real this could be a detriment to Inside and take some viewers right out of the movie when it appears. It certainly was emphasized to a great extent from some of the criticisms I read (from horror fans in general, whose opinions matter more to me than the usual film critics).

I can't particularly argue with a major criticism concerning how the police become such easy prey for La Femme, the way the film allows them to often seemingly, stupifyingly walk right into their deaths without much forethought. La Femme is even in Sarah's house, and when it looks like the police have her cornered, damn near in cuffs even, they allow themselves to give her an opportunity to kill them. I can't really fault those who find the film "ridiculous" and "highly implausible" because the plot really goes to great lengths to allow La Femme to kill people. Slasher movies do this all the time, so if one is to criticize this film, they need to take the chopping ax to the entire genre (which the genre's detractors can often successfully do...). 

The genre does have the twist which itself can be scrutinized because it stems from a car accident that was an unintentional circumstance that cannot constitute such savagery and bloodshed. Of course, you could say that the traumatic experience gave way to the psychopathy that results. It just kind of depends on which side of the fence you are on. For me, I think the film benefits from some potent carnage (blood, blood, and more blood), a shocking central plot--a pregnant woman under attack in her own home by someone who wants her child not long after her husband dies in a wreck that left her worse for wear--that puts the heroine under a major litany, a barrage, of nonstop violence, and Dalle's presence is incredible;  she's so intense, where there's both the quiet and fury of her rage. I think the film is burdened by questionable characters and a script that takes great strides allowing them to die at Dalle's scissors (and gun). I would say that the decision to upend Sarah's chance to murder La Femme, robbed by a cop who has turned zombie (I don't know what the fuck this was about) may be the most absurd example of allowing the killer to persevere and successfully "adopt" the newborn she so kills for. This alone hampers the impact of the film. So, Inside does have its share of implausibilities, but there's still some great moments that make an impact I think if one can somehow see them through the various problems that exist.