Friday, May. 08, 2009

French horror 'Inside' proves horrible

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

Apparently there's a real movement going on in the French horror scene right now, which is news to me because I always thought everywhere was America.

So last year, I called up the president of France and was like "Hey, I'm some guy, why don't you send me a DVD."

Cruelly, they don't let you watch many movies in prison. (Your viewing options are pretty much watching that dude sweat on a bench for six straight hours, which I would give a B- at best.) But what do you know? By the time the government released me, 2007's Inside had been waiting in my mailbox for months.

Four months ago, Alysson Paradis got in a car crash that killed her husband. She was pregnant at the time; now the baby's due the next day. Before it can be delivered, she's attacked at home by Beatrice Dalle, a vicious stranger who wants to take her unborn child.

Um. Most of the movies I cover here are ones I've already seen — I go into them knowing they're good (or sometimes very, very bad) and with a pretty solid idea of how I feel about them. I watched Inside for the first time two hours ago and am only now recovering from the disgust-coma it knocked me into.

Describing it in 10 words or fewer, I would just repeat the word "violence" 10 times, but only because I'm not allowed to do any swearing. Compiling a veritable laundry list of places you wouldn't want to be stabbed — eyes, ears, throat, knees, and groin, for starters — the movie rolls out some of the severest pokey trauma since the Great Porcupine Rebellion of 1827.

But codirectors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury aren't just about revolting nasty violence ("I can't remember the last time I watched a movie with my hands over my eyes this much," my roommate said during the credits). Inside may be their first movie, but it has the feel of something much more assured, establishing a depressive attitude right off the bat before lunging into relentless suspense heightened by strong sound editing and a Shyamalan-esque use of the entire frame.

That's right, this stuff is so messed up it just made me compliment M. Night Shyamalan. I don't even know what to do about that right now. But that's what happens when you watch 80 minutes of graphic domestic warfare that's almost more a test of will than it is a horror-thriller.

All you need to know about Inside is whether watching someone get jabbed through the eye by a giant knitting needle is something that would make you turn the TV off.

No? Rent away.