Inside (2007)

Definitely an accumulation of life sucks for a pregnant news photographer whose husband dies in a car wreck four months prior to the birth of their child...and that's not even the worst of it! She's got home invading wacko, Dalle, wanting her baby at Christmastime, willing to use scissors to get what she feels is hers! Dalle is as close to The Shape as I've ever seen, especially in how she seems to haunt the house and traverse spooky quiet in the shadows. Scissors to Dalle are a butcher knife to Michael. Dalle clad in black kicking a door while the mommy endures a slit face on the night before she's supposed to go to the hospital, holing up in a bathroom...it is really a nightmare. The way the music, really minimalist, atmospheric, and just right at the surface where you can feel it. Something much like you'd hear in a Soderberg movie, I think.

I remember how this was the talk of the IMDb Horror Message Board. The French Extreme boom was 🔥 in the mid aughts. They were the talk on every horror fans lips in terms of shocking, visceral bloodletting. I want to say Haute Tension really broke the dam and Inside was the Great White while Martyrs was the pool of piranha unleashed out of it.

Fuck, is this intense, crazed, and angry. This is the Worst Christmas Ever. Poor cat...neck snap. Poor boss... scissors to crotch, face, and leg. Poor mom...daughter with the sewing needle thought she was Dalle. Whatever drove Michael to his sisters and anyone else in his way, Dalle will spill as much blood as possible to get her bah-bee.

When Dalle turns out the power, her quarry decides Fuck it I'll just spread out over the bed upstairs. Covered in blood, the bathroom battered in red gore from head splatter and gushing juices, our pregnant mutilated mommy cannot get serious help from anyone, including the feckless police, failing to subdue Dalle appropriately.

The actions of characters and CGI baby are criticisms I totally understand. Dalle does seem to operate among conditions favorable to her. The baby being CGI does limit the impact, perhaps dull it. But what happens to the mom sure isn't! Mommy does get her licks in! Fire to the face and a fucking tracheotomy, even factor in the finale!