Inside – Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (2007)

I have to be honest.

Fair warning must be given.

"Inside" is truly offensive and exploitative. The plot centers around one of the most horrifying and shocking true-life crimes I can remember.

Having said that, if you don’t mind being offended and you can look past the truly bad taste this film shows, you are in for one hell of a treat.

I loved every frame of this blood-soaked movie.

Every distasteful and odious moment in the film just made me giddy.

The story starts with a POV shot from a fetus. That’s right, a fetus. This movie is that unconscionably abusive of both its characters and its audience. Wow, hats off, Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury.

They leap right over into that territory where they've crossed the line and shown too much. And oh, don't I admire these ladies for that.

And this frantic, obscene violence keeps up through the entire film.

As I keep writing this, I can’t emphasize this enough: when I use words like ‘unconscionable’ and ‘offensive,’ I’m just giving fair warning weak-stomached viewers, not passing judgment myself.

Again, I loved, loved, loved this film.

LOVED.

Let’s get back to the opening scene.

It’s not just any old fetus POV shot. It starts with a soothing ‘another-nice-warm-day-in-the-womb’ vibe complete with a mother’s muffled voice as the fetus must hear it talking about how she’ll take care of her baby.

Then, BAM! There’s a car crash, a gush of blood clouding around the fetus and a miscarriage all within a matter of seconds. Do you see what I mean when I say this movie is horribly offensive?

It opens up with a miscarriage from the fetus’ point of view for Christ’s sake. I asked myself, “Could anything be more offensive?” Bustillo and Maury spent the next 80 minutes doing their god-damndest to answer that question with a definite “Yes.”

So let’s flash-forward four months, give or take and the woman whose husband was killed in the crash is so far along in her pregnancy, well doesn’t she just look like she’s about to burst?

The transition from benign caller to menacing killer happens in a matter of seconds.

First, who doesn't love it when a girl accidentally kills her mother by stabbing her in the neck? Whoops? And then screams, "Mommy!" as her mother falls down and bleeds to death.

But I'm getting WAY ahead of myself. And I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

But then, the point of movies like this isn't really plot twists, is it?

"MOMMY!" Ladies and germs, that's comedy.

When the very bad, scary lady gets into the house, the slashing starts immediately and doesn’t stop until the end of the movie.

And since everyone else is thinking it, I'm just going to say it.

The killer is hot.

This isn't any surprise for those of you who've seen Jean-Jacques Bieniex' infamous "Betty Blue," in which Béatrice Dalle played a big pile of sex.

I found her pretty enough in that film, but in "Inside," I don't know if it was just because she was sadistic and evil, but I was irresistibly attracted to her.

And I’m not ashamed to say that one of the things I loved about this movie is that so much of the bloodshed was not necessary. Was it really necessary for the crazy lady to snap that cat’s neck?

Of course not. That was just a little extra gift for the audience to enjoy.

The initial attack is absolutely brutal as our sleeping heroine lies, unaware of the intruder.

She realizes she is not alone only when crazy-bitch starts to slide the knife into her gut.

The scene ends with survival for our good girl, but for the rest of the movie, our protagonist looks like she walked right out of one of the Joker’s “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” anecdotes from “The Dark Knight."

Any fan of horror films knows what the rest of the film will be like.

Would-be rescuers come to our damsel-in-distress’ door only to meet horrific and hilarious deaths.

I won’t give a play-by-play because there really isn’t a need for one, but I will say that one of the sequences involves one of the most startling and cackling-out-loud cop-getting-his-head-blown-off shots ever.


I rewound it like ten times. Cackled. Like a green-faced, warty witch. Seriously.

There is a very good reason I usually watch horror movies alone. I laugh myself into fits and that sometimes disturbs people.

I've had people move a few seats over from me in the theater. Seriously.

And throughout "Inside," I felt like a kid, opening birthday present after birthday present every time a would-be rescuer approached the house. You know they're going to die and it's going to be messy.

They are not going to go quietly into this dark night and after the first couple scenes of "Inside," I knew that the SFX guy was going to put wit into every kill.

I won’t ruin the ending for you, not because there's some kind of shocking twist or anything like that because this ain't that kind of movie. I'm just not going to tell how it ends on principle.

But if you’re the kind of person who makes people move away from you at horror movies because you’re laughing at the worst possible moments, or if you wanted to touch yourself just a little bit during Hostel 2 when Heather Matarazzo met her bloodletting demise (and I’m not saying I’m that kind of person) then “Inside” is a movie you will absolutely and unabashedly adore.

And in case any of you are wondering, I'm listening to: