Lino wrote:I personally had to watch this movie in parts because I could not handle the tension and horror all at once. Scared the hell out of me.
À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, 2007)
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denti alligator
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:36 am
- Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"
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colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
Spoilers:
I've been very harsh on the recent French horror film 'renaissance', liking Haute Tension until the ludicrous twist and hating Ils with a vengeance for its pandering to audience prejudices and hackneyed shock tactics parading under a 'true story' banner. While I don't think Inside is a great film it certainly didn't do anything to flat out annoy me as much as the previously mentioned films!
After the shock tactics of Ils one of the aspects of Inside I was liked most was the lack of artificial constraints placed on the violence that occurs - compared to the drawing out of suspense scenes to their breaking point as characters meander around aimlessly with only a briefly shown BOO! moment as a pay off, Inside felt taut and focused with an admirable focus on the consequences of the violence rather than just the bloodless thrill of a quick shock (even if the gore did feel over the top and rather unrealistically presented!)
It felt as if the attacker (or 'The Woman') in the film wasn't playing around with her target in order to pad out the running time of the film but instead was legitimately having to knock off the various visitors to the house in order to get some time alone with our pregnant heroine. I would slightly agree with moviscop's point that the number of people coming to the door only to be brutally killed does add a certain repetitious quality, yet I did feel that there was at least an attempt made to give every visitor a legitimate reason for why they were entering the house - i.e. it is not as if a Bible salesman was calling door to door in the middle of the night purely for the purpose of being killed off! Though I'm not sure whether you'd take someone you were in the process of taking to jail into a house from which you'd just heard gunshots, and linked to you by a chain no less! (Because the one thing you want to do in a situation where you enter an area of unknown danger is to have your movements restricted!) Surely it would be easier to just lock him handcuffed in the car or somethng similar? I'm willing to overlook this aspect but for me that ten minute section until that particular cop and criminal duo are killed off is the weakest part of the film.
I suppose though that something like that happening was necessary to make a feature length film - without the retreat to the bathroom and other people to attend to Sarah would not have lasted five minutes at the hands of The Woman, as the ending graphically makes clear.
It impressed me that there was a certain matter of fact quality about the violence that added to the sense of inevitability that pervades the film, as well as the obvious vulnerability of Sarah's situation even before her home is invaded. I loved the way that after the initial confrontation between Sarah and The Woman through the front door and the scene with the police locking up the house and assuring her that they will send the patrol car around to check on her during the night, the following scene immediately shows The Woman in the room standing over her - after all the reassurance there's no slow build up of suspense again by showing the break in or so on, just the woman unseen standing by the chair and then sat on the bed while Sarah sleeps, sterilising a pair of scissors.
The expectation that the film would go a certain way but not as far as it eventually does was quite novel to feel again in a horror film, despite the obvious foreshadowing and lack of any alternative, or more acceptable, outcome presented to soften the impact of the film. That may be another reason why moviscop felt the deaths of all the other characters were absurd - at no point does it feel as if any of these people are going to change the course of events or save Sarah. The plot doesn't exactly develop, instead resolves in the way it has been threatening to throughout. There was even a refreshingly cavalier treatment of our heavily pregnant heroine. As she takes scissors to the hand (and even at one point a toaster thrown at her head!) it becomes more and more apparent that she is as eminently disposable as everyone else - only her cargo is precious.
This leads to one of the themes of the film I find most interesting. I agree with james's comments about the film focusing on the fears of a woman becoming a parent after the loss of her partner. Her choice of isolation on Christmas Eve in opposition to the wishes of her mother and boss and her initial encounter with a nurse at the hospital also seems to point up the way that everyone is reacting to her pregnancy and not so much to Sarah herself, as if they are all laying claim to different aspects of her child in the absence of her man (it was also interesting to note that of the three police officers who initially arrive after Sarah's first confrontation with The Woman, the female officer seems rather off hand with Sarah in immediately jumping to the conclusion that the father of her child has run off. Also the two male officers seem to be keeping their distance from Sarah to the point of acknowledging her only in a limited way, as if her pregnancy has made her 'off limits' in some ways). This is only made more obvious once The Woman comes into the film.
I also liked the way that a person who was particularly at fault in the initial car accident is not revealed (both women lose something in that accident - the woman her child; Sarah her partner. Sarah is left with both a consolation and a burden in the survival of her unborn child, though of course that child is going to transition to a new mother by the end of the film) - while not legitimising the violence that occurs later, the inciting incident itself is presented in such a way as to not become the thing that shifts our sympathies definitively for or against one party.
So overall I found the themes of the film interestingly handled (parents killing children and children parents through accidents, along with the question of whether all that killing was worth it to get hold of a replacement baby), raising issues yet never trying to force the implications raised by the film to become universally applicable.
I might be responding over favourably in my happiness at being able to find a French horror film that I at least liked (though I think Irreversible is an interesting film, the heights of which Inside doesn’t manage to reach despite similar taboo breaking moments and allusions to societal breakdown and racial tensions). I did feel that the gore was a little over the top (though that is part of the fun too I suppose!), and I do think moviscop has a point about the overuse of the CG baby. It does help to emphasise the importance of the life being fought over, but I did find that the cut aways to it kept pulling me out of the film. I did like the claustrophobia and confinement of the film though, with the casual violation of this security having a parallel in the security of the womb being attacked throughout, which might be something which would explain the frequency of the reaction shots of the baby. (I was left thinking that after all the baby, and The Woman, had been through to be united it might be the final ultimate irony if it had been still born. The film doesn’t take that approach, though even with the baby obviously surviving it still remains an extremely dark ending).
I've been very harsh on the recent French horror film 'renaissance', liking Haute Tension until the ludicrous twist and hating Ils with a vengeance for its pandering to audience prejudices and hackneyed shock tactics parading under a 'true story' banner. While I don't think Inside is a great film it certainly didn't do anything to flat out annoy me as much as the previously mentioned films!
After the shock tactics of Ils one of the aspects of Inside I was liked most was the lack of artificial constraints placed on the violence that occurs - compared to the drawing out of suspense scenes to their breaking point as characters meander around aimlessly with only a briefly shown BOO! moment as a pay off, Inside felt taut and focused with an admirable focus on the consequences of the violence rather than just the bloodless thrill of a quick shock (even if the gore did feel over the top and rather unrealistically presented!)
It felt as if the attacker (or 'The Woman') in the film wasn't playing around with her target in order to pad out the running time of the film but instead was legitimately having to knock off the various visitors to the house in order to get some time alone with our pregnant heroine. I would slightly agree with moviscop's point that the number of people coming to the door only to be brutally killed does add a certain repetitious quality, yet I did feel that there was at least an attempt made to give every visitor a legitimate reason for why they were entering the house - i.e. it is not as if a Bible salesman was calling door to door in the middle of the night purely for the purpose of being killed off! Though I'm not sure whether you'd take someone you were in the process of taking to jail into a house from which you'd just heard gunshots, and linked to you by a chain no less! (Because the one thing you want to do in a situation where you enter an area of unknown danger is to have your movements restricted!) Surely it would be easier to just lock him handcuffed in the car or somethng similar? I'm willing to overlook this aspect but for me that ten minute section until that particular cop and criminal duo are killed off is the weakest part of the film.
I suppose though that something like that happening was necessary to make a feature length film - without the retreat to the bathroom and other people to attend to Sarah would not have lasted five minutes at the hands of The Woman, as the ending graphically makes clear.
It impressed me that there was a certain matter of fact quality about the violence that added to the sense of inevitability that pervades the film, as well as the obvious vulnerability of Sarah's situation even before her home is invaded. I loved the way that after the initial confrontation between Sarah and The Woman through the front door and the scene with the police locking up the house and assuring her that they will send the patrol car around to check on her during the night, the following scene immediately shows The Woman in the room standing over her - after all the reassurance there's no slow build up of suspense again by showing the break in or so on, just the woman unseen standing by the chair and then sat on the bed while Sarah sleeps, sterilising a pair of scissors.
The expectation that the film would go a certain way but not as far as it eventually does was quite novel to feel again in a horror film, despite the obvious foreshadowing and lack of any alternative, or more acceptable, outcome presented to soften the impact of the film. That may be another reason why moviscop felt the deaths of all the other characters were absurd - at no point does it feel as if any of these people are going to change the course of events or save Sarah. The plot doesn't exactly develop, instead resolves in the way it has been threatening to throughout. There was even a refreshingly cavalier treatment of our heavily pregnant heroine. As she takes scissors to the hand (and even at one point a toaster thrown at her head!) it becomes more and more apparent that she is as eminently disposable as everyone else - only her cargo is precious.
This leads to one of the themes of the film I find most interesting. I agree with james's comments about the film focusing on the fears of a woman becoming a parent after the loss of her partner. Her choice of isolation on Christmas Eve in opposition to the wishes of her mother and boss and her initial encounter with a nurse at the hospital also seems to point up the way that everyone is reacting to her pregnancy and not so much to Sarah herself, as if they are all laying claim to different aspects of her child in the absence of her man (it was also interesting to note that of the three police officers who initially arrive after Sarah's first confrontation with The Woman, the female officer seems rather off hand with Sarah in immediately jumping to the conclusion that the father of her child has run off. Also the two male officers seem to be keeping their distance from Sarah to the point of acknowledging her only in a limited way, as if her pregnancy has made her 'off limits' in some ways). This is only made more obvious once The Woman comes into the film.
I also liked the way that a person who was particularly at fault in the initial car accident is not revealed (both women lose something in that accident - the woman her child; Sarah her partner. Sarah is left with both a consolation and a burden in the survival of her unborn child, though of course that child is going to transition to a new mother by the end of the film) - while not legitimising the violence that occurs later, the inciting incident itself is presented in such a way as to not become the thing that shifts our sympathies definitively for or against one party.
So overall I found the themes of the film interestingly handled (parents killing children and children parents through accidents, along with the question of whether all that killing was worth it to get hold of a replacement baby), raising issues yet never trying to force the implications raised by the film to become universally applicable.
I might be responding over favourably in my happiness at being able to find a French horror film that I at least liked (though I think Irreversible is an interesting film, the heights of which Inside doesn’t manage to reach despite similar taboo breaking moments and allusions to societal breakdown and racial tensions). I did feel that the gore was a little over the top (though that is part of the fun too I suppose!), and I do think moviscop has a point about the overuse of the CG baby. It does help to emphasise the importance of the life being fought over, but I did find that the cut aways to it kept pulling me out of the film. I did like the claustrophobia and confinement of the film though, with the casual violation of this security having a parallel in the security of the womb being attacked throughout, which might be something which would explain the frequency of the reaction shots of the baby. (I was left thinking that after all the baby, and The Woman, had been through to be united it might be the final ultimate irony if it had been still born. The film doesn’t take that approach, though even with the baby obviously surviving it still remains an extremely dark ending).
Last edited by colinr0380 on Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Murdoch
- Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:59 am
- Location: Upstate NY
I just watched and believe it to be a film in line with The Descent with its central themes of loss and having female lead characters. Much of what I thought about the film was covered in colin's post above, but I still see some things I'd like to add on
In particular the character of La Femme who I think was supposed to have been a lesbian based on several instances:
Overall a very effective horror film, with a few problems such as the CGI baby that also drew me out of the film, and the redundancy of the cop/criminal chain gang.
In particular the character of La Femme who I think was supposed to have been a lesbian based on several instances:
Spoiler
The most obvious would be the scene with the main character on the bed after the cops have all arrived and been slain where La Femme kisses her and rubs her stomach. However, I'm of two minds on this since she could either have done that out of a sexual attraction, or she projected the idea of the unborn baby onto the woman she was attacking and wanted to sooth the baby after the mayhem that had ensued.
Another part was during the great reveal where La Femme is driving and talking to her baby, telling how they had to go through a lot to get pregnant. I know this is a stretch, but based on her violent behavior toward the men in the film, I believe this was there to imply how she either had artificial insemination or had sex with a man she didn't want to. The violence in the film toward the men was there to show her as a strong feminist villain who had a disdain for men, especially after her accident which caused her to hate the idea of having to go through the need for a man again in order to get pregnant. This caused her to project her anger of the crash and of the process of getting pregnant in general onto her victims, particularly the pregnant woman whom she envied more than hated.
Another part was during the great reveal where La Femme is driving and talking to her baby, telling how they had to go through a lot to get pregnant. I know this is a stretch, but based on her violent behavior toward the men in the film, I believe this was there to imply how she either had artificial insemination or had sex with a man she didn't want to. The violence in the film toward the men was there to show her as a strong feminist villain who had a disdain for men, especially after her accident which caused her to hate the idea of having to go through the need for a man again in order to get pregnant. This caused her to project her anger of the crash and of the process of getting pregnant in general onto her victims, particularly the pregnant woman whom she envied more than hated.
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moviscop
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:51 pm
- Location: California
I do not appreciate the film as you do, as you can see from my other posts. However, I can agree with you on the CGI baby being extremely distracting. Also, theMurdoch wrote:I just watched and believe it to be a film in line with The Descent with its central themes of loss and having female lead characters. Much of what I thought about the film was covered in colin's post above, but I still see some things I'd like to add on
In particular the character of La Femme who I think was supposed to have been a lesbian based on several instances:
Overall a very effective horror film, with a few problems such as the CGI baby that also drew me out of the film, and the redundancy of the cop/criminal chain gang.Spoiler
The most obvious would be the scene with the main character on the bed after the cops have all arrived and been slain where La Femme kisses her and rubs her stomach. However, I'm of two minds on this since she could either have done that out of a sexual attraction, or she projected the idea of the unborn baby onto the woman she was attacking and wanted to sooth the baby after the mayhem that had ensued.
Another part was during the great reveal where La Femme is driving and talking to her baby, telling how they had to go through a lot to get pregnant. I know this is a stretch, but based on her violent behavior toward the men in the film, I believe this was there to imply how she either had artificial insemination or had sex with a man she didn't want to. The violence in the film toward the men was there to show her as a strong feminist villain who had a disdain for men, especially after her accident which caused her to hate the idea of having to go through the need for a man again in order to get pregnant. This caused her to project her anger of the crash and of the process of getting pregnant in general onto her victims, particularly the pregnant woman whom she envied more than hated.
Spoiler
torch to the face and the fact that she seemed to recover quite well.
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LQ
- Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:51 am
- Contact:
Now I haven't seen this in a while but I can't recall the movie's score being anything terribly special. wasn't it just low monotonous tones interrupted by bursts of tinny scratchy techno..? I'm curious as to what was on the soundtrack that so impressed.denti alligator wrote:A friend loaned me the soundtrack and I am very impressed
Somebody wrote here that they much preferred the scenes before La Femme got into the house, and I have to agree...they were legitimately scary and unsettling. Most of the atmosphere dissipates when she actually enters.. (in my opinion). But a tradeup for badass bloodshed and Béatrice Dalle isn't too shabby. What I especially liked about this was that it was short and straightforward. Yes, there are some utterly ridiculous bits (the melted face, for one) and I too will voice my dissent about CGI babies, but I got exactly what I came to see with Inside, and didn't have to muddle over any unnecessary plot twists or nonsensical endings.
My one nagging complaint- why oh why, every time a cat presents itself in a horror movie, does it have to be killed??
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Murdoch
- Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:59 am
- Location: Upstate NY
As someone who has seen multiple horror movies where logic flies out the window and I'm still able to find it believable in the context of the film, all the hokeyness of the film seemed to be more respective nods to past horror films. As for the torch part, I've seen that happen enough in horror films where it no longer bothers me and I actually hope for it whenever someone lights a cigarette. The movie offered me enough gore and story that it made for a good time just before Halloween, even if it wasn't a film that offered anything new within the genre or anything particularly innovative..moviscop wrote:I do not appreciate the film as you do, as you can see from my other posts. However, I can agree with you on the CGI baby being extremely distracting. Also, theThe film was just hokey to me and relied too much on the traditional "gore shock" to be considered a "good" horror film.Spoiler
torch to the face and the fact that she seemed to recover quite well.
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mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 8:43 pm
- Location: Miami, FL
Re: À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury , 2007)
I watched this tonight and was far more impressed by it than I could have ever expected. Much like Bryan Bertino's recent The Strangers, this is a no-nonsense horror film that is completely unreliant on twists, presenting a frightening atmosphere, perfect sets, and letting the bloodshed roll. I was terrified throughout, waiting for the film to become too implausible to bear (outside of standard-issue horror medical fiction) - and it just never relented. The small moments that I found unnecessary () didn't manage to derail the film's truly nightmarish plot and the excellent acting by the two leads. There are enough blood-clotting moments of utter despair here to cause a fatal coronary. I am ready to call Inside one of the best horror films ever made.
Spoiler
braindead zombie cop, anyone?
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colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
Re: À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury , 2007)
I am not sure that I would go as far as calling it the best horror film ever made - I think that the scenes with the two cops (with a recently captured suspect chained to one of them - like Frontier(s), this film seems to also be making some kind of comment about racial tensions and youth rioting in France as well, with the news footage early on in the film and banter between the cops and their prisoner in that scene) coming to the house and getting killed off are far too obviously padding out the film for a few more sequences (plus the scene mfunk mentions in the spoiler tag does go too cartoonishly over-the-top compared to the violence of the rest of the film, which is much more upsettingly presented).
But having said that the whole point of the film is that heavily pregnant woman vs psychotic intruder is going to be very much a one-sided contest without a lot of scenes of the main character barricading herself in a bathroom and with the psycho continually being bothered by visitors that she has to dispatch, so I thought that the film did a good job of spinning out the yarn to the length that it did with only the ten minutes or so of the sequence with the cops seeming particularly contrived.
I think this would certainly rank as one of the better recent French horrors that I have seen (though I prefer Martyrs, although that is an even tougher watch!). The Onion AV Club recently ran a New Cult Canon article on it - particularly interesting was to read in the comments below the article that apparently all those shots of the CGI baby in the womb being knocked around (either by car crashes or other violent events), which do occasionally seem a little too obvious and crassly used, were added by the producers, with the directors not having final cut of the film and only seeing those shots for the first time at a festival screening!
But having said that the whole point of the film is that heavily pregnant woman vs psychotic intruder is going to be very much a one-sided contest without a lot of scenes of the main character barricading herself in a bathroom and with the psycho continually being bothered by visitors that she has to dispatch, so I thought that the film did a good job of spinning out the yarn to the length that it did with only the ten minutes or so of the sequence with the cops seeming particularly contrived.
I think this would certainly rank as one of the better recent French horrors that I have seen (though I prefer Martyrs, although that is an even tougher watch!). The Onion AV Club recently ran a New Cult Canon article on it - particularly interesting was to read in the comments below the article that apparently all those shots of the CGI baby in the womb being knocked around (either by car crashes or other violent events), which do occasionally seem a little too obvious and crassly used, were added by the producers, with the directors not having final cut of the film and only seeing those shots for the first time at a festival screening!
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mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 8:43 pm
- Location: Miami, FL
Re: À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury , 2007)
It's not the best, but it is certainly on my shortlist.