Inside (2008)

It's always fun when a particular sub genre falls at your lap that you love and here is mine: Home Invasion. Why does this area of horror get to me?Probably because at its very core this is something we all fear; something that could easily happen to anyone at any point. The notion of our security and comfort being invaded is an unsettling idea and one that horror plays beautifully on.And better yet it poses a very real question: if your safe haven was invaded, what would you do to save yourself and those you love...?Whilst there are plenty I could have chosen and plenty I've yet to see, I was drawn back to one of the most disturbing films I've seen. To say À l'intérieur is an harrowing experience is actually to undercut how intense this film really is.Synopsis: Pregnant Sarah is involved in a car accident that kills her husband, a few months later on Christmas Eve she prepares for the festivities and arrival of her child when there is a knock on the door. But the woman on the other side doesn't want help she wants something else and she'll go to whatever lengths to get it...The beginning prelude with the crash and then the quiet aftermath is the perfect build up, the quiet swell; the serenity (of sorts) feels off. You can tell something isn't quite right and then...It has to be said Béatrice Dalle as La Femme is fantastic! Her unnerving calmness as she goes about systematically intruding on Sarah's life is thoroughly disturbing; the chill that permeates her scenes are as atmospherically creepy as it gets. Yet although this begins with an Hitchcockian feel once Femme manages to get past those walls, the change is palatable.The scene I still struggle to watch happens early on but is probably one of the simplest scenes to affect the viewer. Sarah in bed, Femme over her, the blade against her pregnant stomach... for anyone who is or as been this is an untimely reminder of how vulnerable we can be.The score by François-Eudes Chanfrault is outstanding, it sets a trembling beat that moves at a steady relentless pace adding tension at precisely the right points. The gore is shed in droves, it doesn't shy away from the bloodshed so if you're a gore hound this will easily suffice.And the ending... whilst this film is, in my opinion, the definition of an excellent home invasion it's the final that seals it. I'm a fan of both the happy ever after and the bleak yet for this it's the depressing nature that leaves an uncomfortable, unpleasant impression on the viewer. And makes this a film deserving of such status. If you have yet to see it, do so, this is horror simply put, at its finest.

For the now, for this halloween season, I have sated a bloodlust I never needed to sate, because I never really had one. Yet after watching this film, I am almost good. Though I will continue to watch horror and thrillers and mysteries, this film was just a nonstop increasing gorefest.I wont spoil anything as the synopsis on the main page is descriptive enough, but don't see this while eating if you are easily upset by blood and violence. At times the characters ( cops especially) in this film were dumb as all get up, and perhaps that is just a return to the trope when it comes to the overall thriller genre( though cops are pretty dumb, by nature. Police forces don't want anything but grunts).So Though I want to hate much of this film, I want to like much of it, and must give it a medium 6/10; not sterling, but okay.

Yes. Just like I said: High Tension and Irreversible were trash movies that only pleased easily impressed wonders and virgins to true horror films, and controversial masterpieces.And apparently Inside is no better.If you like offensively stupid, senseless, mundane, hackneyed, cliché, hollow, pointless excuses for movies that you think are unique, original and groundbreaking simply because of their language, then I point you to nothing but the French versions of Hollyweird garbage like Hostel and Saw.(iMDB wouldn't let me post this until I had more lines of text in my post, and that's how much I can't even bother reviewing or watching this).But let me be honest: I didn't even finish the film. I didn't even start it. And not because Beatrice Dalle is so disgustingly, off-puttingly grotesque to look at. But I clicked the cursor to the middle of the film and previewed it: I looked for performances, scenery, colouring, and context for what was going on which I had enough of. The scene I saw was a bloodied woman crawling and weakly asking "Please, help..." with her hand stretched out. Yep. Didn't bother watching. By then I had enough of garbage movies, and the characters speaking French are NO exception. If you want to be disturbed and watch French at the same time, check out Martys 2008 or something. Don't settle for this ****.

I can go along with some of the criticism I read on this film. For instance: the unbelievable stupidity of the cops and the endlessly changing back and forth between peaceful moments and the hacking and slashing. But in this case it's almost like getting your birthday cake and your name is spelled wrong by just one letter; who really cares, as long as it tastes just right!After having seen 'Irréversible', 'Martyrs' and 'Haute tension', the French horror genre has grown on me a bit, and the gore here is very, very well done. The story pertains to a couple of beautiful (some disagree, but who cares) ladies get 'caught up' in a bizarre fight, which is wonderfully shot and has an excellent soundtrack.A good 8 out of 10 stars, and "Au revoir".