À l'intérieur (2007) Reviews

• stopped in its tracks by unbelievable characters and behavior

  GnarlyBark2009-06-30

  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.

• gore, gore, gore... and then some more gore

  kgottlicher2008-10-01

  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.

• Useless Trash

  pearl182010-05-02

  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.

• This crap gets a 7.1?!?

  guy2822009-05-06

  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 sickest film I've seen in a long time.

  jhpstrydom2009-12-08

  Of course I have seen films like MARTYRS, FRONTIER(S) and JACK KETCHUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR but I have to say INSIDE was in a class by itself in terms of the ending, it was so bloody and violent I had trouble wrapping my head around what I just saw. At first I wanted to hate the film and kick myself for buying it but later on I couldn't stop thinking about it, especially about the ending, very few films have had that effect on me, so in the end I thought maybe it was a good film, because I can't even remember the last film that had this particular effect on me, so I'll go ahead and say among all the graphic violence and all the intense moments there was actually a very unique experience. If I could give good advice to all male horror fans, don't think of this as the ideal date movie, it might cause a few problems in your relationship.