Inside (À l'intérieur)

2007
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury
Cast: Beatrice Dalle and Alysson Paradis

Plot: Four months after the death of her husband, a woman on the brink of motherhood is tormented in her home by a strange woman who wants her unborn baby.

Protect Your Baby and Your Face!
by C. True

Continuing on with French horror I chose the much reviled À l'intérieur, or Inside. Some quick research on the internet will inform you that by most accounts Inside is one of the goriest and most disgusting movies to come out of France, due in no small part to its somewhat taboo topic. Pregnant women don't usually make it into horror movies, and its a little surprising given what a truly depraved idea it is. Not only is the main character of Inside extremely pregnant but her pregnant status is at the crux of the entire plot. As such the story goes for a lot of cringy-worthy scenes and takes the plunge towards the all too inevitable gorey climax. The movie starts with Sara, who has lost recently lost her husband in a car accident and is now all alone and as stated at least 8 months pregnant. One night at home she hears a knock on the door, it’s a woman asking to use the phone. Sara refuses her stating her husband is asleep. But the visitor knows Sara’s husband is dead (uh oh!). She lurks around the house for a while, disappears when the police arrive, then later manages to get into the house. Our mystery lady reveals, surprise surprise, she would be more than happy to take Sara’s baby, if she doesn’t want it. While Sara finds safety locked in the bathroom a bevy of guests arrive at the house including her mother, her boss and a follow-up visit by the police. These visitors of course just offer us a chance to see the brutality of Sara’s persecutor, and really provide some of the only major events in the story. Sara is locked pretty well in that bathroom and as can be easily guessed that inevitable gut-wrenching scene has got to be the climax, so these visitors are just filling the time with gore. Its good gore I guess, not always original but definitely disgusting, which is most of the point after all. One bone of contention came with this attacker’s unwillingness to attack anything but her victim’s faces. Even if her weapon on hand is a pair of scissors and the only part of the face available for attacking is one of the thickest parts of the skull, namely the forehead, she is not dissuaded and goes for that head shot. I’m being a little unfair, one time she does jam scissors through someone’s hand but this was really to maim and not to kill. Needless to say Inside went more towards camp than say the equally violent French Frontier(s) but with a subject so disgusting its rarely touched in horror cinema I suppose a little silliness was needed.

Up until I saw this movie I was beginning to think the French showed their women a little more respect in the horror genre than Americans. It seemed that most of the heroines NEVER got to that exasperated breathy stage where they are giving it their pathetic all by spending most of their energy crying and gasping for air. Instead most of the women in French horror seemed determined to survive from the very beginning and their best effort seemed like it might actually be good enough for them to make it through the movie. That was until I saw Inside, where our main female victim gives it a real half-assed effort to make any sort of escape or retaliation against her attacker. Although the excuse maybe that she is pregnant and weak (not to mention already in a moody dejected state at the beginning) I really think the opposite reaction to this hostile situation would have worked better. Isn’t it possible that a pregnant woman would fight harder to save the life of her baby? And wouldn’t it have been creepy to see a pregnant woman carry out brutal survival-violence? Seeing victims reach their brink and turn against their attackers in an emotionally crazed state is one of the most satisfying horror twists and, when done right, can give the viewers the best of both horror movie worlds: scary helplessness and gorey revenge.