Movie Review: Inside

Inside * ½ / *****

Directed by: Miguel Ángel Vivas.

Written by: Jaume Balagueró & Manu Díez & Miguel Ángel Vivas based on the screenplay by Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury.

Starring: Rachel Nichols (Sarah Clark), Laura Harring (The Woman), Andrea Tivadar (Alice Donovan), Stany Coppet (Hugo Garcia), Ben Temple (Isaac), Richard Felix (Rick Stein), Craig Stevenson (Mike McCogan), Maarten Swaan (Matthew Fields), David Chevers (Brian).

 

I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2007 film Inside by directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury – an example of the New French Extremity subgenre of horror that at its peak during that time. Although stylish, on my first viewing, I felt that the extreme gore and disturbing images in the film were all at the service of a rather hollow film – when a film is going to make me suffer like that, I at least want it to be in the service of something other than the extremity of the film, and I didn’t think that was the case here. Watching it again a few days, I liked it more than I did a decade ago. I still don’t think it’s the best of the French Extremity films like some do (give me Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, David Moreau & Xavier Palud’s Ils, Xavier Gens’ Frontiere(s), Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible or last year’s Raw by Julia Ducournau any day over Inside – as an aside, no I’m not forgetting Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs – I HATED that film, and yet I’m tempted to do a re-watch to see if that’s still the case) – but it is a really good, really disturbing film. I’m not sure it has another level (I’ve seen talk that there is some pointed commentary on motherhood in the film – it doesn’t seem like it to me). The style is great, and the film is genuinely disturbing and scary – and really doesn’t pull its punches, right down to its disturbing ending.

 

Now, a decade later, comes the American remake – and I really do have to wonder what the point of the film is. The film has decided against going the extreme route of the original film – this really is a toned down version of the original film, with far less blood, far less disturbing depictions of violence, and a lot more hiding in the bathroom. The ending of the film is completely different as well – not surprisingly, I assume the American studio didn’t think the original ending would fly with audiences. That didn’t have to be a terrible thing – but in this case it was, because not only is the ending different is nonsensical.

 

The plot of the film is essentially the same. Months after her husband died in a car accident in which she was driving, Sarah (Rachel Nichols) is home by herself as Christmas, about ready to give birth to her first child. There is a strange knock on the door, a mysterious woman (Laura Harring) says she needs to make a phone call. When Sarah refuses to let her in, the woman lets it be known that she knows exactly who Sarah is. Freaked out, Sarah calls the police. What follows leaves a trail of bodies in the house, as the woman is determined that is leaving that house with Sarah’s baby, one way or another.

 

If the film wasn’t a remake of an extreme French film, that I had literally watched the day before, I think that perhaps it would have worked a little better for me. Roughly the first hour or so isn’t particularly good per se, but it’s not bad. It almost seems like director Miguel Ángel Vivas figured the best way to tell this story is to make the exact opposite decisions the original filmmakers did – thus not alienating people who couldn’t stand that level of gore, and perhaps surprising fans of the original in a way gore wouldn’t. He toys with the audience who knows the original film (Harring picks up a very large pair of scissors several times for example), but he wants to make a more conventional, straight ahead thriller. He also doesn’t want to go where the original film did in terms of an ending – but in order to avoid that, he has to contort the characters in odd ways, and they have to make one dumb decision after another to get there.

 

The problem with this remake of Inside though is that once you strip away the extremity of the original film, there really is much else here. The film becomes a standard issue, low-rent home invasion movie, and not all that scary of one either. Tasked with filling up more time that the original spent covered in blood, the film extends the amount of time Sarah spends hiding in the bathroom to an almost absurd degree.

 

If it wasn’t for the connection to the infamous (in some circles) original though, there wouldn’t really be much of note about this version of Inside. It’s the kind of buy the number, straight-to-streaming entry that we see quite often – uninspired, and rather silly, until the end when it gets downright dumb. If you liked the original, watch that one again, and ignore this. If you’ve never seen the original then this really doesn’t have any interest for you at all.