User Reviews

if you are going to make a horror/suspense/gore flick that wants to be taken seriously, like this one obviously does, first of all you need believable characters that the viewers can take seriously. unfortunately "À l'intérieur" sets a new standard for ridiculous and inexplicable character behavior.

*SPOILER* the supposedly "scary" antagonist is a fairly skinny woman who manages to kill 4 grown men including 3 armed police officers, one male teenager and 2 other women...with scissors and knitting needles. this is mostly possible because the officers in question obviously never received any kind of training in how to manage potentially dangerous situations and suspects and pretty much everybody except for the main protagonist fails to put up any kind of resistance whatsoever. little wonder really. since the killer-woman is obviously super-human, any resistance would be futile. she can enter a locked and barred house without making any kind of sound, she can see perfectly in the dark where others need flashlights, she can somehow grab a knitting-needle hidden in her sleeve while a fairly strong looking police officer has one of her arms locked behind her back and she obviously has some kind of hypnotic powers that force everybody to turn their backs to her even though she's highly suspicious and hold perfectly still while she takes her sweet time to stick them with super-human strength. *SPOILER END*

it's really sad too because technically the movie is fairly well executed. the camera and lighting work nicely, the gore effects are fairly convincing, the sound effects are juicy and the music brings some fresh ideas to the table. best conditions for a suspenseful scary gore-flick...if only it wouldn't be lacking so much in substance and believability.

4/10 for the technical aspect but i would only recommend this movie to someone who's seen EVERY gore flick there is and just HAS to see one more.

There a few things wrong with this movie that have schlock elements that if they had been fixed or handled differently would have propelled this film to greatness. SPOILER ALERT:

1) First Issue is the accent music playing during certain violent scenes. It sounds kitchsy - almost like something Tarantino would think would be cool to play when it would have been far more effective minus these moments.

2) The audio separation from the 1st floor and the 2nd floor seemed hard to believe. Everything that went on on each floor seemed to be completely isolated in regards to audio. The inability for anyone to readily hear what's going on upstairs or downstairs on multiple occasions stretches believability.

3) I find it hard to believe the remaining cop didn't call for backup once his partner got shot from the car. This is difficult for me to get over.

4) The face burn at the end didn't seem quite to take as well as it should. This woman would have been in insane pain and probably unable to see period. Also the fact that her head didn't snap back from the flame is a bit weird - normal human reactions would be to snap your head back from the flame.

5) The "prisoner" in the cop car tags along via handcuffs and the cop gives the guy a gun? Also - considering a life/death situation - that would be gross negligence on the part of this cop to bring this arrested dude into this situation. Not too believable - the arrested guy is there simply to be another victim.

Besides all of these problems - I somewhat enjoyed this. I feel that if they had cleaned up a few of these issues - this movie could have gone from half schlock / half Funny Games to a full on serious movie. Unfortunately I had to suspend my belief on multiple occasions that ultimately left me with somewhat indifferent. Bleak ending is good though.

The only shocking thing about this slasher is its rating - 7.0?! Obviously, some people are REALLY easy to please/shock.

First off: if the events take place on Christmas (totally irrelevant for the plot, by the way), why is all the foliage GREEN (as in late-summer green)?! And this is not Australia, mind you, this is France. Call me pedantic, but such "oversights" are inexcusable and foreshadow all the bad that is to come.

Secondly: the occasional in utero CGI shots of the baby (besides being completely unnecessary) are so laughably cheap that I can't fathom how come MORE people didn't find them tragically detrimental, especially since more often than not they appear when the "tension" is at its highest and totally destroy it.

Thirdly: comparing this flick to "High Tension" (another French slasher over-hyped by patriots and the easily shocked) might mislead those who've seen it into believing "Inside" has some "psychological" undertones (i.e. that the killer is a projection of the protagonist's alter ego, like in "High Tension"). But it does not. This is as physical as it gets.

A basic rundown of the plot (SPOILERS AHEAD!!!): A pregnant couple has a car crash in which the guy dies. Sometime after, the grief-stricken pregnant widow Sarah gets attacked at her home by a "mysterious" woman, who apparently wants to harm her and/or the baby. Is she real or is she a figment of a conscience burdened by the "survivor's guilt"? Is Sarah symbolically fighting some inner demons? Is she another Rosemary from "Rosemary's Baby"? Nope. Turns out, the attacker is very much real: she was also in that car crash and lost her own baby. And now wants to take Sarah's as her own, killing everyone in her path.

Boo! It's like all interesting movie premises have already been beaten to death and sucked dry, so what you get is one-dimensional, improbable nonsense like this.

What unfolds in between is some of the most unlikely string of events you're ever going to encounter on celluloid, all heftily slopped with buckets of gore. Logical behavior goes out the window, as "plot development" only serves to string two ridiculous gory scenes together, and with it any chance of this movie rising above the slasher level. Now, that may be fine if that's your cup of tea. But "Inside" wants to be so much more.

The problem as I see it is two-fold. Firstly, most people have grown numb to blood and violence. I've spend my childhood in a war zone in Yugoslavia and can blissfully slurp a tomato soup while watching even the most goriest scenes around. Others have grown numb through news, internet and an overabundance of movie violence. Now, that may be unfortunate psychologically speaking, but for aspiring horror directors it means they must try harder to scare and scar us than by drowning their flicks in self-serving, senseless gore.

Secondly, even those faint of heart will grown numb if you beat them over the head with non-stop pointless violence. It gets to a point where it starts being comical. Like in the last "Rambo".

Back to the plot. If your viewer is perplexed by the illogical behavior of your characters and is constantly going "Why?", how do you expect him to be shocked? For instance, Sarah never attempts to escape through the bathroom window (or any other windows, for that matter). The woman (a regular citizen up until then) manages to outmaneuver and kill three (THREE!) armed police officers, because police is, naturally, incompetent. When Sarah comes in the room looking for a weapon to defend herself, instead of any of THEIR weapons (including a grenade launcher), she goes for a POKER! Logic? Anyone? And then, later on, possibly exhausted by all the gore, she goes to bed mid-action and falls asleep like a baby, only (of course) to be attacked by the ever-awake killer woman. She even manages to inadvertently kill her own visiting mother, mistaking her for the killer: an implausible event which serves no other purpose then to give us a nice shot of a squirting jugular and up the ante on the "sickness" with some unnecessary matricide.

To a similar end, you also get a scene in which one of the officers (previously shot pointblank in the head) magically resurrects and proceeds to beat SARAH (not the killer woman, mind you) with a truncheon across her pregnant belly (why? WHY?!), causing Sarah to spurt buckets of blood from her vagina. Sick? Would have been, if the scene made ANY sense at all. And if it wasn't interspersed with yet another laughable shot of the pathetically computer-rendered baby inside her.

And the score? Sudden, loud, cacophonous sounds during "scary" scenes. Yaaawwwn.

I could go on and on about all that is wrong about this movie, but anyone still reading this has already wasted enough time on it, so do yourself a favor and don't go watch it too (a benevolent advice that far too often goes ignored around here - myself being guilty as charged too).

A shallow, illogical mess of a movie for the faintest of heart and undemanding. Pulls nothing but cheap gory punches. Go revisit "Rosemary's Baby" for the 100th time if necessary.

A few years back, when the words 'Japanese' and 'Horror' were said in the same sentence, ears would rise and interest would immediately peak. Now, replace 'Japanese' with 'French' and the reaction will still be the same. A l'interieur (aka Inside) co-directed by first timers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. It is hard to believe that these two men could create a debut that is this good, this intense, this...ferociously insane bloodbath. Think of Alexandre Aja's 2003 horror 'Haute Tension' (which was also a brutal but excellent slasher) mixed with Halloween and toss in Dario Argento's style (particularly from 'Tenebrae') and you have Inside.

Bustillo does not bother with a story that is in-depth or very large for that matter. In fact, it is rather simple: Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is a young photographer who recently lost her boyfriend in a car crash and she is still grieving over her loss. It is now Christmas and she is alone and expecting a baby the next day. On Christmas Eve she is visited by a Woman in Black (Béatrice Dalle) who wants to get inside the house for reasons unknown. However, soon enough, she is in the house and her goal becomes crystal clear. She is after Sarah's baby and she will do anything to get it...absolutely anything.

There are many techniques that make this film as good as it is. First and foremost, the setting. The majority of the film is set in Sarah's house, furthermore, most of this is in her bathroom. This makes for some extremely intense moments and real feelings of claustrophobia. Also, the two leading ladies give such powerful performances which really assists in getting us to feel what they feel and think what they think. Sarah's determination to survive and fight back is realistic and gives the movie a powerful vibe and theme of a mother's love for her unborn child. La femme (the Woman in Black) is comparable to The Shape (Michael Myers) from John Carpenter's 1978 slasher classic 'Halloween.' For the first 20 minutes she appears as a silhouette, not speaking, just standing and watching. Creepy and chilling are just two words which describe her in the first part of the movie.

Now onto the parts of the movie discussed the most...the copious amounts of blood. And let me tell you, once the blood starts to flow it never stops. From the moment we see our first drop the movie moves at such a breakneck pace it is hard to keep up. I was literally on the edge of my seat while watching these parts, that is how intense they were. Not only that, but the gore was so realistic and brutal at times I found myself covering my eyes (which I rarely do in any film). Blood sprays, crotches are stabbed, throats are slashed, faces are burnt and heads explode. The finale is soaked in blood and features one of the most depressing, disturbing and gruesome endings I have seen. No one will be able to leave the movie feeling well...I felt emotionally drained and ill. Movies rarely do that to me.

Ignoring some lapses in logic and a fairly bland revelation (not really a twist), Bustillo and Maury have created a refreshingly brilliant horror movie that proves that: horror is not dead and that the French are now producing the best horror movies seen in many years.

4/5

Wow, you have to grant that this is a real decent horror debut from France. "A l interieur" is a really strange mixture of a classic slasher movie with thriller elements. In some ways it reminded me of "High Tension"... the bleak colors, the female main actors and the raw violence. But this one takes it to another level... some scenes were pretty sick with bizarre fountains of blood spraying and you get a home made c-section without anesthesia thrown in to top it off. Now thats not all... the atmosphere of this movie is damn tense so this is no splattermovie by any means. Plotwise, well... A pregnant woman survives a car crash, loses her husband but is about to give birth to her baby when suddenly a strange woman stalks her and breaks into her house. From here on the whole plot is set in the small house where she hides in the bathroom from the maniac who wants to steal her child. Unexpected family members and cops all end up in pools of their own blood and gorehounds will be happy with this one for sure. Anyway I was expecting quite something since the obscure maniac seems to be connected somehow. But when the movie exposes the connection it seems like dropped in after a long tension build up... and its really lame. In the end the movie loses itself in gore and gets pretty stupid. The lobotomized zombie guy could have been so creepy but WTF is the crazy living room scene supposed to mean? In the last 15 Minutes a lot of things seem random... this and the closing is just about what really dropped the bar for "A l interieur" after a real strong opening. So to keep it short... this is a damn bloody, sick and tense movie with some real nice cinematography and a minimalistic creepy score. But the plot is absolutely stupid... I wish they had worked that one out and we would have another french horror highlight. This way its impressively gory and raw but thats about it. With a plot like Hellraiser at his hands I am interested in Bustillo's result anyways.

This film I had heard about from some of the horror film podcasts I listen to. I had seen other films from the French Extreme movement that came out in 2000's, but this was one I hadn't yet. The synopsis of this film is four months after the death of her husband; a woman on the brink of motherhood is tormented in her home by a strange woman who wants her unborn baby.

Now this film has an interesting premise. It starts with the car accident that Sarah's (Alysson Paradis) husband dies in. The film does a great job at establishing subtly Sarah now as to what she was before the accident. This is done through pictures she has on her wall with her husband and she looks happy. We see her at her last appointment before they induce labor. She seems to just be depressed and doesn't really want to be around people, which I can't blame her. It would be tough to becoming a mother after losing your significant other like she did.

The editing does well at building tension throughout the film. It starts off with La femme (Béatrice Dalle) just spooking her. What makes it even better is that the film feels realistic too. The police show up and others do as well to help Sarah. It takes place on Christmas Eve, so her neighborhood is even more quiet than normal. There's also civil unrest, which seems to stem from foreigners killing someone, so there are riots. Between both of these, it makes sense why response times to something like this would take more time than normal.

Now speaking of realism, the blood in this film looks extremely real. It had my toes curling despite knowing that it is fake. I have to give the filmmakers credit, they went practical and it looked amazing to me. I won't give away of the actual attacks that happen, but I will say that between the blood and violence, having Sarah being pregnant amps up the tension as well for the film.

We also get a CGI look at the baby in the womb before the accident. I will admit, I could have done without this aspect of the film as it doesn't look great. I also don't really feel that is needed either. I won't hold it against the film too much, but that was one issue I had. I understand why we see it throughout the film though. There also was some fire that I thought didn't look good as well. This is something that is still a problem for films as well. Those were my only issues with the effects.

In order to make this film happen, the two women had to have solid performances as they are the two in it for most of it. Paradis has the necessary arch for this film. She is freaked out and then is trapped in the bathroom for most of it. It makes sense as she is forced into labor by what happens to her. She does have that turn when she knows if she wants to survive, she'll have to fight back. Dalle on the other hand is quite creepy. I love how people just assume who she is and it almost works a couple of times. That helped to ramp up the tension as well. I ended up feeling kind of bad for her, which is hard to do seeing the things she does, but it still doesn't justify her means for sure. The rest of the cast definitely rounded out the film for what was needed.

The reveal near the end of the film I thought was interesting as well. I wasn't expecting what happened which is good thing. It answers the question of why. For me, it didn't necessarily have to be answered, so I figure I should state that. There was something that does happen during the climax with one of the police officers that I didn't really care for. It confused me to be honest. I will say that ending of the film was great in my opinion. It is so bleak and dark.

While writing this, I tried to think if the score really stood out to me and I can't really recall it. I don't think this is negative toward the film. It doesn't hurt the film and never took me out of the scenes, so I will give it credit there. There were a few times though that I did and it really got my anxiety going even more. Something else though is that the gritty look of the film. I thought it helped to add to the realism of what was happening.

With that said, if you don't really know about the French Extreme movement, you might want to brace yourself. There is a lot of realistic violence and blood. Now with that out of the way, I really liked this film. It isn't for everyone, but if you like these types of films, I would recommend it for sure. I thought the story is not only scary, but interesting. It does have a reveal at the end I liked as well as something that kind of confused me. The ending itself though definitely made up for it. The acting I thought was good. The two leads did really well in two differing characters. I especially liked Paradis' character arch. The CGI doesn't hold up well, but thankfully there isn't a lot. The practical effects were amazing though. The editing of the film was good and even though the score didn't stand out, it fit the scenes. Overall I'd say this is a good film, but as I said, it isn't for everyone. If you can handle it, definitely give it a viewing.

I have to say I'm a pretty big horror buff and it's been quite a long time since I saw a film as offensive and irritatingly stupid as Inside. The story concerns a young pregnant woman who is menaced in her home by another woman who wants to steal her baby. One wonders why the villainess doesn't wait until the baby is born to sneak in and snatch it (the story reveals she's waited 4 months already and the baby is due to be delivered the next day), considering the incredible ease that she sneaks into the house undetected. Things might have gone better for her. Of course, this would cheat the hack filmmakers from the money shot they can barely contain themselves for: the ugly extended shot of a woman being cut open with scissors (love how passively our heroine endures this, by the way). This review could go on and on for pages cataloging the ludicrous behavior of the characters, but I won't bother; rest assured, though, this movie has an extremely high "oh, come on!" quotient. I wonder in what alternate universe a woman the size of Beatrice Dalle, carrying only the aforementioned scissors, could break into a house and kill 6 people, 3 of them armed with guns, and not get caught or killed. Welcome to the world of Inside.

The opening scene is inside one of two cars involved in a fatal crash. A very pregnant woman looks over at her dead husband and speaks his name as blood gurgles from her mouth. The credits flow over graphic ultrasound images and we are introduced to Sarah, the survivor of the car crash four months later. It is the day before she is to give birth. What follows is complete and utter insanity. Not only is this film full of brooding and intensely suspenseful moments but the gore factor is through the roof. A perfect mix of tension, suspense and graphic gory death. Watching a very pregnant woman being terrorized is nasty enough but there are actually moments in the film where they have the audacity to show the action from the fetus point of view. I think that is wonderfully evil! It is not for the squeamish and certainly not for those who are not fans of the horror genre. But for those of us who have watched hours of obnoxiously bad tripe, when a film like this comes along it is a beautiful shiny beacon of Horror light! There is only one ever so brief scene between Sarah and a cop near the end that I just thought was out of place and didn't work. Pure, bloody brilliance!! HIGHLY Recommended!

I can only blame myself for having watched this ludicrous film to the end. After all, it was on cable and all I had to do was change the channel. But I didn't and now I'll have hideous images burned into my memory for a long time to come. The plot is so unbelievable that it is humorous.

A pregnant woman who is about to give birth at any minute is allowed (and chooses) to stay home alone on Christmas eve in a remote area. Her best friend, mother and doctor all oblige, of course. Yeah, right. After a psycho woman in black (who knows her name and personal situation) knocks on her door asking to use the phone, the pregnant woman calls the police who later reassure her that "she won't come back" and she hence decides to spend the rest of the night alone anyway. Yeah, right. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that she is a seasoned photo journalist hardened from the trenches at the ripe old age of what, 25?

It only gets worse. The psycho woman manages to magically appear in the house, terrorize the pregnant woman with scissors, buckets of blood and gore follow. A squad car comes by later to check on the pregnant heroine, the two cops realize something is up (perhaps it was the two slashed bodies in the stairway or the girl with her hand pinned on the wall with scissors?) and manage to be killed by psycho woman before even calling in for backup? Yeah, I can buy that. Then the remaining two people from the squad car, a cop who has leashed himself to a perp they arrested, decide to go investigate only after hearing shots, again without calling for backup. Psycho woman takes them down too all alone. Did I mention that the perp was a north African teen they arrested due to riots going on in the presumably nearby projects that night? There must have been a social message there but I was too nauseated to notice.

The worst part of this film, aside from the silly plot, shallow characters and senseless gore, is undoubtedly Beatrice Dalle. Why on earth she chose to accept such a ridiculous role is beyond me. Although perhaps it's because she hasn't had much work since the cult classic Betty Blue in 1986? She is unattractive, unbelievable and frankly annoying. How she has remained even on the fringes of the scene for so long baffles me. But now I'm getting personal.

My only reason for taking the time to write this is to purge my self-loathing for having watched such trash. People will undoubtedly watch the film despite anything they read here, and judging from the glowing reviews on this site, there must be something that I missed. Actually, that's quite a relief.