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Torture pron done right.

I don’t know what’s going on in France these days, but the two most violent horror films I’ve seen years have both come out of France.  The first is Inside.  The second is the soon to be released Frontier(s).  Both are just relentless brutal and unflinching.  Of the two, Inside is a little bleaker due to the subject matter.

It’s hard to paint an accurate picture of how disturbing and harsh Inside is without going into great detail and spoiling most of the movie.  A very pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is on the verge of labor at any moment.  A few months earlier she was involved in a tragic car accident where only she survived.  Now a widow, she is visited one night by a woman (Beatrice Dalle), who is hell bent on destroying Sarah and what remains of her life. 

After a very brief setup where we learn virtually nothing about Sarah except she was in a horrible car accident that killed her husband, she should deliver her baby any day now and she lives alone.  When Beatrice (known only as Le Femme), her motivation for the unbridled hell she unleashes on Sarah remains a mystery until the final moments of the film.  Inside is a survival film where one woman vs. another and only one will survive. 

Inside isn’t an easy watch.  Some will love it and others will find it as a further example of how pointlessly violent horror films have become.  I found it riveting as I didn’t know where the film would go and just how far the directors would take it.  Needless to say, there aren’t many taboos in horror film.  The pregnant women fall into that small list.  Once you trap a battered pregnant woman in a bathroom and then stab a knife through her hand so she can’t escape, you know things are going to get dark and disturbing.  Half of the fun of the film is seeing how far they will take it and director’s Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury take it further than most will be expecting.  I will say that there is a self tracheotomy scene that made me turn away.

Bustillo and Maury were attached to the remake of Hellraiser but have recently moved on.  They seem like a natural choice for the project.  I would have liked to have seen what they would have done with the project but Hollywood studios probably couldn’t handle what these guys were planning.  The duo keep the tension high and the gore heavy.  If you love graphic horror movies or torture porn as they are called these days, Inside will be your movie.

Extra wise, there is an hour long making of featurette.  It’s the sole extra on the disc.  Due to its lengthy runtime, they are able to go through and examine the making of the movie with it just being a huge ass kissing festival.

If watching a nine month pregnant get sadistically tortured for an hour and change isn’t your cup of tea, then I wouldn’t recommend Inside.  Horror film fans will find Inside a must see.  It’s an impressive feature debut film from some talented filmmakers that should have a bright future.  I know I’ll be watching.

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