Well, there seems to be a new hyped-up French flick on the horizon. Much like
High Tension, a work that it's almost automatically going to be compared to,
Inside aka
A L'Interieur is literally soaked in blood. Like, this one is SOAKED in that shit. Blood is everywhere. I'm not gonna lie- this movie rivals
Dead Alive in the gore department. It also features these bizarre, almost Cronenberg-esque visuals that actually work pretty well. Seems like a good movie, right?
Wrong. In typical fashion, the film starts off pretty good, but pathetically runs out of steam after almost a half hour. Once the first murder happens, you've seen it all, and the film is an unfortunate example of what happens when a nice, simple plot is well, just a little too simple.
There have been plenty of people praising the film's straightforward narrative. The plot, concerning a psychopath who wants to literally remove a baby from her mother's womb with a pair of scissors, is deliciously malicious. It seems like the sort of inspired, simple story that would give the filmmakers some breathing room, and allow them to craft a special, scary film out of. But sometimes things don't work as well in reality as they do in theory. And I hate to say it, but the plot just doesn't work as well as everyone (myself included) thought it would. I almost feel sorry for the filmmakers. They had a pretty good idea, a cool, gimmicky weapon in a pair of scissors (I mean that without any condescension), and an excuse to make the film shot as cheaply as possible. The movie takes place over the course of one night in the same location (pretty much). It's like a low-budget filmmaker's dream come true. But, like I said before, it just sort of falls flat.
And here's why- the gore. The film is bloody as fuck, but it's also bloody as fuck five seconds after the opening credits. The directors never give themselves a chance to build on something. There's no real shock or horror at what happens later on, because by the time we see some creative work with the gore, we've been numbed by all of the violence. There's only so many times you can make blood spurt out of someone's body parts. Sure, there WERE some standout kills that happened later on, but their dramatic (and horrific) impact were drastically reduced. After you see some of the violence that occurs relatively early on, you get accustomed to it. You expect more. And the only way to build up to a satisfying conclusion would be to up the ante. But the film never does that. It's like Peter Jackson putting the lawnmower sequence in the middle of
Dead Alive, and expecting people to care about any of the random kills that happen later.
That's a bad example, though, because even that film has a lot more inspired murder setpieces than
Inside. I can't even give you a good example now- I just prefer not to think about mediocre artistry.
But this movie just TRUDGES along. It's like it gives you all of this unnecessary violence that you don't need or even really want, and then when the inner gorehound finally comes out, the film says "Fuck you."
And the ending. Dead lord, the ending! If it was just clever and sharp without any blood, I would've been satisfied immensely. My favorite film of all time is
The Shining. I don't need movies to end with a bang. But there's nothing worthwhile about the conclusion. You can see it coming from a mile away. It just sort of "is." Sure, the ending might not be screaming "Fuck you," but it certainly is saying "Whatever, man." It's like the filmmakers got lazy. I don't even know what they were thinking. I can't possibly fathom the tepid, watered-down brainstorming that occurred.
If you're going to show people getting their heads blown off, then why won't you show a-
Okay. Not gonna spoil it.
But without giving away any spoilers, the ending violates the basic, fundamental laws of rhythm and proportion and build-up. You know what films have great rhythm?
Psycho.
Friday the 13th.
The Shining. It's like music. If
Psycho is "God Only Knows," then
Inside is "Kokomo." I actually like "Kokomo." It's not bad, but it just stays in this one place the whole time. It's boring. Repetitive. There's no dynamics to it. Sure, it's gore-soaked, but gore never guaranteed intensity anyways. I'll save the "less is more" cliches, but you all know exactly what I mean. The directors never build-up on anything. Instead of maybe keeping the gore down and building up on it to a graphic climax, they do the opposite. You just can't have a good, satisfying film if the ending falls flat. They don't even go for a bloodless ending. At least that would be interesting. But it's not. It's not over-the-top, and it's not odd and abrupt. It just sort of
is. The filmmakers even had the balls to put expository dialogue and flashbacks into the finale. If that's not a flat, uninspired conclusion, then I must be living in a fantasy land, and films like
Alien,
Halloween, and
Jaws must not exist.
But, maybe I'm being too harsh on the film because it's just so hyped up. Had I not been exposed to the hype machine, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more. The filmmakers do show signs of talent- it just isn't realized in this film. There's no staccato; no frenetic pace to catch my interest. I'm not saying that every film has to have soundtrack stingers and be like
Halloween. That's obviously bullshit. But a horror film can't lull along, and this one does. If they wanted to go for a slow-burn, then at least they could've built upon some of the things they were doing in the first twenty minutes, which were actually quite good. But how can you make a slow-burn out of that plot? There's only so many ways that you can do stalk & slash. Sure, the film does have other things going for it, but all of that is just dressing. Let's not get too pretentious- for all of its artsy aspirations,
Inside essentially is a slasher flick. And the cerebral, picturesque approach was simply the wrong way to go.
The Shining this film is not.
The music doesn't help either. It's pretty good, but it never really adds to anything in the movie. There were so many times when the film would've worked better without any music at all. It's overused. It's fucking BLAND. And, it takes away from several key moments that could've just gushed with brutality. Perhaps that's what makes this film so frustrating. Watching it, you get the feeling that with a few minor tweaks, it could've really been something special. I won't give anything away. But there is a certain death scene that is absolutely neutered- all because the directors didn't know when to shut off the goddamn music.
As of today, the film has gone the way of direct-to-video. It comes out April 15th from Dimension Extreme, and although this was a decidedly negative review, I still recommend that you check it out for yourself. For all of its faults, it is at least a unique viewing experience, and the filmmakers certainly have some sort of cinematic vision waiting to be properly realized. It's definitely better than
Hatchet or something like that. Just don't go into the film expecting this mind-blowing experience. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.
