Released: January 2018
Director: Miguel Angel Vivas
Run Time: 89 Minutes
Not Rated
Distributor: Embankment Films
Genre: Horror Thriller
Cast:
Rachel Nichols: Sarah Clark
Laura Harring: Madeleine
Ben Temple: Isaac
Gillian Apter: Sarah’s Mom
I’ve always been a huge fan of horror movies. It’s a genre that I’ve followed since I was a kid. I didn’t really start getting into horror, though, until 2005 when House of Wax was released to theaters. A couple years after that, though, I started hearing about this French slasher flick called High Tension. That was my introduction not just to Alexandre Aja’s films, but to French horror in general. High Tension was one of the most violent and brutal horror movies that I saw up to that point, and I was utterly entranced by it. So, I began to pay more attention to horror films from France like Irreversible, Frontiere(s), and Martyrs. There was another one that was released back in 2006/2007 which ended up being one of the goriest movies I’ve ever seen: Inside(À l’intérieur). It was shocking, bold, and brutal. It was widely regarded as one of the best horror films of the decade. When it was announced that Martyrs was getting an American remake, people were skeptical(and rightly so), but some were also afraid that Inside was also getting the remake treatment. Well, it did, and…..it’s a shadow of the what the original film was.
Inside follows Sarah Clark, an expectant mother whose husband was killed in a brutal car crash months prior. Still reeling from the tragedy, Sarah lives alone with her dog when a mysterious woman knocks on her front door. Sarah turns the woman away and goes back to bed only to discover that the woman has broken into her house and is attempting to steal her unborn child. A cat-and-mouse battle for survival begins as Sarah tries to protect the one thing that matters most. It’s a simple set-up for a horror movie so it doesn’t really require a lot of thought. Simplicity is a good thing in a lot of horror movies. What makes Inside’s story so interesting, both in the remake and the original film, is that things like this have actually happened. I would imagine this scenario would be a living nightmare for an expectant mother as it would be for any family. The problem with the story in THIS version of the film is that certain elements were changed or removed entirely to accommodate delicate American sensibilities. The final act of the film in particular takes a far more conventional and predictable approach to the story’s conclusion and as a result, it feels less impactful than the original French film. This version’s story isn’t the only thing that makes it an inferior film, though.
I’m just going to say it: The new Inside is extremely tame in terms of its violence. Make no mistake, it’s still pretty violent with some stabbings and shootings, but it still feels very restrained. The original film really let the blood flow. In fact, the gore in the original film was medically accurate(as far as I know), so it had that extremely visceral punch that this movie doesn’t have. There’s a reason why some of these French horror flicks have earned the label “extreme.” They pull absolutely no punches in terms of violence and brutality. They also didn’t shy away from nihilistic endings or situations, and that’s what made those films so damned interesting. Easy to sit, through? No, but at least the French had the balls to go all the way with what they were intending, and that illustrates one of the key differences between American and French film-makers. French film-makers actually trust their audiences to be able to handle the stuff that’s being thrown at them. American film-makers? They’re constantly treating us with kids’ gloves, even though our audiences are more than capable of handling some extreme material. Part of what made the original Inside so memorable was its level of violence, but this new one feels very conventional in that regard and that’s not really a good thing. What the film does have going for it, though, is intensity. Even if you know what’s coming, it’s still got you on the edge of your seat and that’s not a bad thing.
The performances here are actually pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Rachel Nichols plays the pregnant Sarah, and she absolutely goes for it, despite the absurdity of the final act. She’s fantastic as a pregnant woman that’s not only fighting her life, but that of her unborn child, even when she’s having contractions and is about to go into labor. It’s insane, but it was still handled better in the original picture. Laura Herring plays The Woman. Her performance is very different from that Beatrice Dalle, who played the character in the previous film. Instead of going completely psychotic, Herring tones it down quite a bit for this film, and while I don’t think it works as well, she’s still an intimidating presence. While the main leads are convincing, no one else is. The writing of these side characters is ludicrously stupid. I mean, the cops that show up do the stupidest damn things that I’ve seen fictional cops do. You may as well have stuck a piece of paper on their backs saying, “Keystone.”
If you’re not in the mood for over-top brutality and gore, then you might actually find some enjoyment here. Myself, I enjoyed it a bit, but I just couldn’t shake the fact that a superior version of the film exists. This reminds me a lot of the American remake of Martyrs: A watered-down and more sanitized version of a film that was designed to shock and provoke. As it stands, the new Inside is nothing more than your average conventional thriller, and while it isn’t a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination, it just doesn’t hold a candle to the French version. It just seems to me that American film-makers just aren’t understanding why these French horror flicks are so memorable. It’s either that, or they don’t want to offend people’s sensibilities. Grab a pair, will ya? Trust your audience to handle the material. Will they all handle it well? No, but more often than not, you’re going to find that audiences tend to be a bit more receptive when they aren’t being treated like children.
My Final Recommendation: Sacrebleu! Another inferior American re-make! 6/10