Inside (2007) – Review
For those of you who haven’t heard of this film, Inside is one of the new wave of French horror cinema that first came to American audience’s attention with High Tension. Although I have not seen High Tension, I can tell you I was positively shocked by the level of brutality delivered by this film. For those of you who live for ever-more extreme levels of gore, this is the movie you’ve waited for.
I, however, am not a gore afficiando. Frankly, movies like Saw and Hostel fail to titillate me. Instead, (especially in the case of Hostel II) I’m sickened by them, but not because of any disgust caused by the physical violence or the volcanic eruptions of blood and organs. What bothers me is that these films do not seem to seek to horrify the audience, to bring on any actual scares. Indeed, they do not even encourage us to actively care about the lives of the victims. We are there to immerse ourselves into the role of the killers, to live out our fantasy lives in all their sadistic, voyeuristic glory.
Luckily, this is not the case for Inside. You are, without a doubt, horrified. Standing in stark contrast to the recently-reviewed remake of Black Christmas, the makers of Inside understand fully the art of mounting tension in a horror film, relentlessly driving us to the brink and pulling us just far enough back to keep us from becoming desensitized.
Watching this with a friend earlier today, we both found ourselves screaming mercilessly, and at certain points we actually were forced to turn it off due to sensory overload. At the film’s end my cohort perhaps summarized it best, “I feel as if I’ve been raped by the devil.”
Beyond the actual effectiveness at horror, Inside is also remarkable because of the complexity of the craft that went into it. While the horror genre is glutted with the worst examples of inept filmmaking, this is a gem that truly shines. The lush cinematography, the masterful lighting, and the soundtrack – this is art house, not drive thru. And, let me assure you, you won’t miss the lack of nu metal. You’ll be too busy screaming.
