INSIDE

(a.k.a. A' L'INTERIEUR)

Opening with a car crash that leaves pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis, THE LAST DAY) scarred and her husband dead, INSIDE quickly fast-forwards four months to Christmas Eve. Sarah, still mourning the loss of her partner, leaves hospital heavily pregnant, having been told by her doctor that she must return there in the morning when labour will be induced.

However, when Sarah returns home that evening - declining offers of company from her boss and her mother, preferring a night in alone - her rest is interrupted by a knock at the door. Through the door, Sarah speaks to a Woman (Beatrice Dalle, TROUBLE EVERY DAY) who claims to have broken down outside. With riots going on in the streets, the Woman wants inside.

But Sarah is suspicious of the Woman's intentions and tells her she can't let her in, as her husband is asleep upstairs. The Woman responds by addressing Sarah by name, and advising her that she knows her husband is dead. Suitably freaked out, Sarah backs away and warns that she is going to call the police. This doesn't stop the Woman from hammering on the door and trying to smash her way into Sarah's house via the patio doors.

When the police turn up they take a description of the Woman and search the premises. Satisfied that the intruder has gone, the police leave for the evening. They advise Sarah to keep her doors and windows locked, and tell her they'll pop in on her later in the night - just to be on the safe side.

Alas, the Woman has somehow already managed to sneak her way into Sarah's abode, and once the cops are gone she wastes no time in terrorising the young widow.

It's not necessary - or fair - to give any more of INSIDE away. It's a simple premise that pits one female character against the other, both with a common goal in mind: they want Sarah's baby. Once the scene has been set and the Woman is established as being in the house, the plot pretty much goes out of the window and the remainder of the film exists as an exercise in gory suspense.

And indeed, INSIDE is pretty gory fare. The two female leads get nice and physical with each other with a blood-soaked gusto that makes the drawn-out spat in 2LDK look positively tame in comparison. When they're not mauling each other, other characters conveniently pop along to Sarah's house (in a rare move for the horror genre, the police actually DO turn up for a second time to check in on Sarah) along the way - primarily to be bludgeoned, hacked or blown apart.

The FX are, for the most part, fantastic, thankfully eschewing CGI and instead opting for the much preferred foam latex and geysers of stage blood. The results are satisfyingly splashy - although I suspect the regular shots of the baby grimacing while inside Sarah's battered belly may divide audience into those who think it's an imaginative idea and those who think it's silly.

The dual directing of debut filmmakers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury works well, avoiding the schizophrenic tone that many co-directed efforts tend to suffer from. On the contrary, INSIDE flows smoothly as a consistent and fluid horror film with a dark heart and unrelenting downbeat tone.

A lot of INSIDE's success is down to its lead actors. Dalle is terrific as the Woman, adorned in black and barely uttering a word while piledriving through Sarah's house ripping apart anyone who gets in her way. There's a narrative progression (NOT a twist, per se) that lends empathy to her character - which makes her actions all the more frightening.

Paradis has a more awkward task to perform and it seems, in earlier scenes, that she may have misjudged it. Her character is clearly depressed around the holiday season because she's still grieving the loss of her husband. But she comes on as so surly, so rude, that it's hard to feel sympathy towards her - or to believe that anyone would want to be with her on Christmas Eve. But as the film progresses and Sarah's predicament becomes increasingly scary, her vulnerability comes to the fore and she becomes much easier to warm to.

INSIDE isn't as tense as, say, SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE, but does sustain an agreeable level of suspense, even if there's a point where you kind of know where it's all heading. There are flaws - it gets a little daft in the final third, and the throwaway attitude toward the peripheral characters renders proceedings almost cartoonish at times - but by and large this stands as further proof that the French, along with the Spanish, are the main sources of hope for 21st Century horror films.

The Dimension Extreme disc is nicely packaged, with an attractively shiny slipcase housing a regular keepcase.

On the disc inside, we get the full uncut version of the film (there's been much talk online of this being far too gory to ever be shown in the UK - it's April 2008 as I write and as far as I know there's been no submission to the BBFC, although personally I don't think they'd have any objections to what's on offer … it's certainly not torture-porn).

The film is presented in a good-looking 1.85:1 transfer, enhanced for 16x9 TVs. Although a little dark at times, it's a good transfer with vibrant colours and sharp images.

The French 5.1 audio offers a solid, well-balanced mix. There's also an option to watch the film dubbed in English 5.1, but I didn't take a look at this. Optional subtitles are available in English, English Hard of Hearing and Spanish.

Animated menus include a static scene selection menu offering access to the main feature via 16 chapters.

The main extra on the disc is an excellent 52-minute Making Of documentary which offers plenty of insight into this "feminist horror" film's production. Main players are interviewed on-set, and lots of great behind-the-scenes footage is available to enjoy. The likeable writer-director team come across well: enthusiastic, intelligent and generous. It's a good watch, presented in French with optional English subtitles.

The only other extra relating to INSIDE is a 2-minute trailer that does a fair job of putting across the film's taut nature, but also makes the film look too trite. It's not as good as the Japanese trailer that was posted on the SGM message boards by The Gomorrahizer.

The disc opens with trailers for DIARY OF THE DEAD, STORM WARNING and THE MIST.

INSIDE is an enjoyable and extremely promising debut from Bustillo and Maury. Their names have already been attached to (and apparently severed from) the forthcoming HELLRAISER remake. On the strength of this film, they appear to be one partnership that is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Bearing in mind that the extras on the 2-disc Special Edition available in France are not English-friendly, Dimension Extreme's R1 disc is a very sufficient alternative for those of us who are not fluent in French.

Recommended.

Review by Stuart Willis