Having recently experienced my first film in the French New Extremity with 2003's High Tension, I was interested in seeing other films in the genre. With Second Sight's new Limited Edition release of Inside, I was excited to dive into this dark and grizzly tale.
Often featured on lists of 'most extreme' horror films, I'd heard of Inside for a while, but knew relatively little about it other than how people felt after watching it. Upon learning about the main premise of the film, I could see how this scenario is ripe for a frightening tale, and how the movie could get under your skin.
The film opens on tragedy, and sets the stage for more to come. Before the credits have even begun we witness one of the worst scenarios that people may ever have to live with, as pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis) sits wounded and bloody in her crashed car, her husband dead beside her. A young family has been ripped to pieces before it's even had a chance; yet this is perhaps one of the least awful things that happens in the film, and with the movie opening this way it's making it clear to the audience that what's coming is going to be a lot darker still.
Jumping forward in time a short while, we meet up with Sarah on Christmas Eve as she readies to have her baby. Now heavily pregnant, ready to be taken into hospital and induced if the baby doesn't come naturally, she walks through her meetings with hospital staff almost a zombie. Still reeling from the loss of her husband, she's facing the future as a single mother, forced by tragedy to go into what should be a wonderful stage of her life wounded and alone. Though she is alone in that sense, she has the support of her mother and co-workers, and we see some of them trying their best to help her through this time.
Sarah returns to her remote home, ready to spend Christmas Eve alone until her boss can take her into the hospital the next morning. When she's awoken by a woman banging frantically on her door, however, her night takes a sinister turn. The woman reveals to Sarah, who refuses to let her in, that she knows she's alone, that her husband is dead, and even calls her by name. Sure that she's in danger, Sarah begins a fight to protect both herself, and the life of her unborn child.
Inside is not for the feint of heart, and might be one of the bloodiest, most brutal, and downright nasty films that I've ever seen. The movie is filled with a sense of dread and unease from the very beginning. Sarah is presented as a woman deeply in mourning, of having almost given up on life. There's the sense that if it weren't for the baby that she is expecting she may have even given up completely. But that's not to say the baby is even really presented as anything hopeful for her. Early on in the film Sarah has a nightmare where she's choking, coughing up a stream of breast milk before the ghastly form of her baby rips out of her mouth like a scene from Alien.
The beginning of the film makes you wonder if Sarah even really wants this child or not. She seems to treat her pregnancy as an inconvenience, something that she hates, and shows no excitement towards holding her child in her arms. There's a moment where she is attempting to knit for the baby, but her work is broken and full of holes. This feels like both a representation for her life in that moment, broken and missing pieces since the loss of her husband, but also shows a lack of wanting to make it right from her too. She's not undone the knitting and started afresh, nor has she repaired the holes. Instead, she's left them there, moving on even though the entire project has become a failure.
Even when La Femme (Béatrice Dalle ), the films antagonist, arrives on the scene and begins threatening Sarah it's not completely clear if Sarah is being motivated to save her child, or simply just to save herself. Sarah's motherhood feels quite removed from her throughout the film, and the disconnect of seeing a heavily pregnant person on screen who isn't putting her pregnancy and baby first with joy is an unusual enough a sight to feel off.
Once La Femme enters Sarah's home, the film becomes a more traditional killer style narrative. La Femme wants the baby, and she's going to gut Sarah in order to get it. This begins a cat and mouse scenario where a bloody and wounded Sarah has to find a way to escape from her home and the woman, whilst others who come to the house are picked off one by one. The amount of other characters that arrive, steadily filling the house with victims for La Femme, does feel a bit excessive, and some of them seem to only be there in order for more blood and gore to be thrown around. Three cops turning up along with a guy they've arrested, doesn't really add anything more than a single cop would; other than a chance for more brutal killings.
And brutality is the main thing on the menu here. The violence in Inside is brutal and bloody, with an eye for making the audience uncomfortable. And whilst there are some fans of horror who love that, who say the bloodier the better, I myself see no inherent horror in blood and gore, and can often find it off putting. Gore is an easy go to, a quick and cheap way of getting under the audiences skin. And the over use of it in Inside feels somewhat disappointing. The film had some interesting ideas, and was ripe for a thought provoking character study, but most of the film had a blood covered Sarah hiding in her bathroom as others were killed, or fighting off La Femme in almost sadistic fashion. It honestly left me feeling kind of uninterested in large portions of the film, as characters rolling around in blood was much less interesting that Sarah as a character.
But, this is a film that's brought up in terms of the more brutal, gory, and uncomfortable horror films you can find, and for that it absolutely delivers. There are parts of the film that are downright disgusting, and others that left me wincing as what I saw on screen made my stomach turn and the hairs on my neck stand up. I'm also very much aware that I'm both someone who is unable to have a child, and doesn't want one, so the horror of Sarah's situation likely hits different to me than someone who can have kids, or already has them. And I'd certainly never want someone to watch this film whilst actually pregnant.
The new Limited Edition release comes with a lot of extra features, including two audio commentaries; one by Anna Bogutskaya, with another by Elena Lazic. Both of these go into the film in depth, discussing the movies themes, how it was made, and the impact that it had on French cinema and horror at the time. If you're interested in film these commentaries are well worth a listen, and I found them perhaps more interesting than the film itself at times. There are also a series of new interviews made just for this release, featuring the cowriters and directors, the lead actress, producer, cinematographer, and stunt coordinator, all of whom go into different aspects of the films production. There is also a small documentary piece by Jenn Adams to round out the disc. The set also comes with a slipcase featuring new artwork, a 70 page book filled with essays by film experts, and a series of collectors art cards.
For fans of extreme horror Inside is probably a film you're already familiar with, but even if you are this new set offers enough extras and new features to be worthy of consideration. For those who have never seen it before, but have maybe heard whispers and want to test their mettle against the horrors that the film contains there's never been a better time to pick up a copy.
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