Monday 7 October 2013

30 Days of Horror | Day 7

An Incredibly Twisted Movie
Inside

It's worrying that we now live in a time where there is a sub-genre of horror that is called 'torture-porn', where if a film doesn't show extreme bodily mutilation it is considered tame. The number of films that could meet the criteria of 'incredibly twisted' is a lot longer than it really should be, and so in choosing a film for today it had to be something really disturbing.

Inside is a 2007 French horror and the debut film directing duo Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. The film, set on Christmas Eve, follows Sarah (Alysson Paradis) a heavily pregnant woman whose home is invaded by a woman (Beatrice Dalle) who intends to forcibly take the unborn baby from Sarah's stomach. The concept alone is disturbing enough to put many off the film an I myself only watched it based on the countless positive reviews that praised it as the best horror film of recent years. While I wouldn't place such a prestigious title on the film, it certainly lived up to it's reputation, it is one of the most brutal and sickening films I have ever seen.

The horror genre seems to have developed a fascination with body horror, probably due to the fact that as extreme as they may be, the actions being depicted are entirely possible. Watching a family being terrorised by ghosts or a group of teenagers running from an undead murderer is escapism; by all accounts that couldn't happen to us. Watching a woman attempt to cut a baby out of another woman with nothing but a pair of rusty scissors, that will strike a nerve with a viewer. That could happen.

The film itself is a prime example of horror at its most effective, setting an impressive tone that stands strong throughout and featuring some great scares and frightening images. But the main attraction to this film is the body horror, and it is some of the most gruesome that I have seen. The problem with this is that the story suffers greatly as it becomes secondary to the visuals, and by the end the is really nothing to take away from the film besides a new found knowledge of how strong your stomach truly is. The directors were, at a time, pegged to direct the remake of Hellraiser that Dimension is planning, and after watching Inside it is clear why they were approached. They know how to handle pain on film.


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