Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s Inside is one of my favorite horror movies of the 21st century. As wary as I am of English language remakes to recent horror films, I was cautiously optimistic about this one, mostly because of the casting. Rachel Nichols and Laura Harring are two of the best actresses working today and it’s a shame they aren’t household names because they almost always deliver the goods. Their performances are the only things keeping this Inside from being a One Star movie.
If you’ve already seen the original Inside, there’s no reason to see this one. If you’re still curious, I’ll recap the plot: A very pregnant woman (Nichols) is enjoying a quiet Christmas alone in her home when a strange woman (Harring) shows up and tries to take her baby… while it’s still inside her.
The first act is fairly solid, mostly because so much of it revolves around Nichols. Director Miguel Angel Vivas gets a little mileage out of the fact Nichols’ character is deaf, which leads to the film’s lone suspenseful sequence. Once Harring sneaks into the house, the movie shoots itself in the foot and never recovers.
I guess it all boils down to context. If you haven’t seen the original, you might think this is an OK time waster. However, if you’re familiar with the first movie, you will be downright appalled by the way Vivas drops the ball here. The original Inside was a shocking, balls-to-the-wall horror show. The only thing shocking about this one is how bad it is.
If you’re not going to at least try to top the original, then what’s the point? It’s like that Martyrs remake. Yes, it’s technically proficient, but why even bother if you’re going to neuter and/or completely remove what made the original so potent? All this just so Joe Average Moviegoer doesn’t have to read subtitles?
The last act is particularly insulting. If you know the original, you’ll know how important scissors are to the plot. In this one, the characters keep teasing and teasing the audience with the scissors before turning around and using a kitchen knife or a shard of glass or something. Eventually, the scissors DO get put into use, but they go into an entirely different person than they did in the original, which greatly diminishes the impact.
Which leads me to the finale. Remember the gut-wrenching climax of Bustillo and Maury’s classic? Forget it. It ain’t happening here. In fact, what counts as a substitute is downright insulting to the audience’s intelligence.
Fans of the first movie will want to stay far away from this one. It might raise the pulse of a clueless dolt who is well-versed in Lifetime Originals, but most horror hounds will be left thoroughly unimpressed. Unless you want to see Nichols and Harring earn a paycheck, there’s really no reason to see it. If I do get a hankering to see Rachel Nichols being stalked by a psycho on Christmas, I’ll watch P2 again, thank you very much.
I thought this one and the Martrys remake were perfectly fine films, certainly better then most horror remakes these days.
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