October 30th, 2010 - Inside

Alright, so this is the first time I've blogged drunk. I saw The Social Network and it seemed to work out okay for Mark Zuckerberg. Also, Zuckerberg is apparently not in the dictionary on Facebook, which is hilarious. Almost as hilarious as Facebook not being in the dictionary. Wow, this went on a tangent quickly. Hurm, on to the movie.

Inside is freaking awesome. Bloody and mean and funny. To condense the story more than I usually do. Pregnant woman loses husband in car accident. Another woman decides she wants the baby. Night before C-section, other woman shows up with pair of scissors. Bad things happen. Very bad things....

This is an unpleasant movie. Gruesome things happen to pretty much everyone who gets screentime. On the plus side, the less time you have on screen before your death, the faster it takes to die. That said, there is a certain elegance and humor to most of the kills that make them much more palatable. You have to have a very dark sense of humour, but most of the deaths are kind of funny.

It's also very well shot. It all takes place inside the main character house. There are no exterior shots, no glimpses of anything beyond what we see. It's terrifying and claustrophobic and is done all so well. They went out of their way to think of creative ways to shoot the same, very small, bathroom and shoot it well. This is some of the best cinematography I've seen, horror film or not.

The acting is very good. I could nitpick the smaller roles, especially the cops that come later on in the proceedings. The two main actresses are outstanding. The killer especially, played by Beatrice Dalle. I didn't recognize her as the blind woman from the Paris segment of Night on Earth until just now. Makes me wonder where casting directors have been all this time.

Inside is a harrowing ride, and probably the best of the recent French new wave of horror. Martyrs, Frontiers, even High Tension are all just pretenders to the throne. A great example with what can be done with a small budget and some creativity, it needs to be seen by all self-respecting horror fans at once.