Inside (ÀL’intéreur)
DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, STARRING: Alysson Paradis, Jean-Baptiste Tabourin, Claude Lulé RUN TIME: 82 Minutes,
RELEASE: 2007, LANGUAGE: French
It's been four months since Sarah (Alysson Paradis) was involved in the tragic car accident that claimed the life of her husband, yet somehow the couple's unborn child miraculously survived the ordeal. Now it's Christmas Eve and Sarah is sitting alone in her suburban home, still grieving the loss of her beloved. Soon, Sarah's mother will arrive to drive her daughter to the hospital, where the doctors plan to induce labor. Sarah hears a knock at the door; on the other side is a stranger (Beatrice Dalle) who calmly asks to use Sarah's telephone. Immediately suspicious of the stranger's motivations, Sarah locks the door and quickly calls the police. Upon searching the grounds, the policemen find no trace of an intruder and Sarah cautiously bolts her doors once again. But unbeknownst to the expectant mother, this time she has unwillingly locked herself into a violent struggle for the one thing that matters most to her.
Inside opens up with a very effective and subtlety wonderful depiction of the car crash that took the life of Sarah's husband. It’s a great little opener that’s actually quite powerful in its simplicity. Four months later (NO SPOILERS) on Christmas eve, Sarah is having a final scan before being sent home in preparation for a scheduled induction, the following day. The opening set-up to the film is fairly brief but also feels quite slow-going, but you don't have to wait long to get to the meat of it. The doorbell to her home rings and the calmly spoken sound of a woman's voice signals the start of the meat and the mayhem. And let me tell you now, the meat is raw and it is bloody.
In regard to the antagonist, Inside certainly is a refreshing change from the norm. Instead of the typical drunken red necks, gang of burglars or masked, creepy strangers we have the wonderful 'La Femme'- a psychopathic woman that is hell-bent on taking Sarah's baby from her. She is without a doubt one of the best home invasion nightmare creations that I have seen, in my opinion. Beatrice Dalle (Betty Blue (1986), La Vengeance D'une Femme (1990), The Intruder (2004), You and the Night (2013)) - is brilliantly formidable as the terrifying 'La Femme'. She creeps about in the shadows and the darkness like an evil smoking Nanny McPhee, and when it comes to levels of insanity, she is absolutely off the charts. Dalle brings absolute madness and deep-rooted pain and horror to the role, with a world of malevolent intensity thrown in for good measure. Her performance really is something special. Alysson Paradise also gives a superb performance as the terrorized Sarah, but she is arguably eclipsed by Dalle the entire way though. I cannot praise Dalle enough for her portrayal.
That being said, this is where the film kind of peaks for me. A solid performance is all well and good but exceptional performances aren’t enough to solely carry the film. Inside is a fairly good film. However, that is about the strongest compliment that I can give it. The script itself isn’t anything special and there is nothing unique about t that will hold in my memory and prevent it from being unforgettable. The problem I had with Inside is that it never really racked up any worthwhile moments of tension. As great as the character of 'La Femme' is, I never really felt on the edge of my seat at any point, and the main reason for that is that this film really focuses more on the blood and the gore than trying to tell a good story. It is massively blood-thirsty and brutal but that's where it kind of lost me. In my recent review of the amazing 'Martyrs' (2008), I said this:
'Typically, I am not a fan of torture-porn or gore-laden films. It's not because I am squeamish in any way. It's just that I find it all a bit ridiculous, mindless and nothing more than a cheap coercion tactic created with a purely select audience in mind. Don't get me wrong, I get that some people are into that and that's a case of each to their own. It's just not for me. I'm not really into blood and gore just for the sake of it. I like my films to have a little more substance if they are going to go down that route.'
I feel that this film was violent just the sake of being violent. The writers just tried too hard to achieve shock value whilst never really making any effort to give the film any great purpose. It pretty much centred around 'La Femme' trying to do as much damage as possible with the world’s sharpest pair of scissors, in her campaign of terror against Sarah. To that end, it disappointed me somewhat.
This is a good film, I'm not saying that it isn't but it could have been so much better if they had just tried a little harder to make it that much more substantial as opposed to it just being a cheap-shot gore-fest. Blood-lusters everywhere will no doubt enjoy this savage hell-ride but anyone looking for something with a little more depth and imagination will surely be disappointed. I do recommend this film because it's not too bad at all and it's worth it just to watch Dalle give a spectacular performance. I'm just saying, don't expect too much from it. I've seen much better.