I only come on here to promote films I think people will really like, and last night I watched the nastiest little film I have seen in some time.  A must for the gore-hounds out there.

It is a French film called "Inside".

A very simple story of a pregnant woman terrorized in her home by the craziest French bitch I have ever seen on film.  This gap-tooth lady is really creepy-good.

The gore here is cringe-inducing stuff.  I am a pretty jaded viewer -- who found "Hostel" kind of laughable -- but this stuff will make even the hard-core fans squirm.  I am talking, like, the prong of a pair of scissors popping into a pregnant belly-button squirm.  It is a dark, dark film.

There are the usual problems with a film like this.  Some of it is over-the-top, and characters make really poor decisions to move the plot.  And several shots of the baby in the womb are a lot more stupid than the filmmakers had hoped, I am sure.

But leave those kind of problems at the door -- if this sounds like your type of film, you are used to those types of problems anyway -- and I bet you really enjoy this one.

Also, it is subtitled, but once the slashing starts it really does not matter. At that point, the dialogue kind of ceases to matter, you know?

Fans of the torture-porn genre will find this a very welcome step up from the usual fare, and should definitely check it out.

Sounds like my kind of film.

I've written two horrors this year with pregnant women in them. The last one I finished last Friday. It's the feature version of Dark Side of Man and I did like the Hostel films. Thanks for posting about this one!  :)

This movie was seriously dynamite! One of the best horror movies of the 21st century in my opinion, not to mention one of the best home invasion movies. Way better than Funny Games and minus the preachiness. I liked Frontier(s) better, which has become something of Inside's counter part in recent times, but the filmmaking here is slightly better with less shaky camera moments and the violence is just as brutal. Also, excellent performances. I don't remember the names of the actors but apparently the actress who plays the villain is part of France's A-class.

Of course, it's not without its problems. The CGI is overused a tad and I don't think you have to be a pregnant woman to realize the punishment the protagonist takes would most likely have had her dead thirty minutes into the plot. Then again, these French flicks are all over the top brutality and this one has enough else going for it that these issues can be set to the side. So I'm with Bert on this one. A must see for gorehounds.

Finally saw this...and Boy Oh Berto, am I glad I did!  Very, very strong flick in almost all regards.

SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS

Story-wise, this ain't nothing to write home about.  Pretty simple, but there are underlying strong themes.

Set-wise, again, very, very simple.  The vast majority takes place in an average looking 2 story house.

FX - Fantastic!  Seriously well done graphic violence with buckets of blood.

Performances - Very strong.  Both women do an outstanding job, and our Antag, played by Beatrice Dalle is phenomenal.

Shot on a budget of around $3 Million, it's just shocking to me how god the film looks and plays out.  Watching the "Making of" special feature really gives good insight on how and why everything works so well.

The movie is far from flawless, though.  IMO, even the unrated cut is a little short at 83 minutes.  The big flaws come from the script, which I'm shocked weren't ironed out better.

I'm talking about several things here...

The behavior of the cops, although not too terrible, IMO, could/should have been fixed up.  basically, when the power is cut, the surviving cop makes a number of really stupid blunders that any cop wouldn't make.  Leaving our heroine upstairs, while he goes to find the circuit breaker is just foolish.  And whatever was gong on with him in his final scene is also pretty lame.

Another good I spotted is actually quite pivotal to the entire story, and has to deal with the initial face to face meeting of Antag and Protag.  It appears that "La Femme" tries to violently stab (which would kill) Sarah in the stomach.  This would completely derail her entire plan to get Sarah's baby.  It's such an easy fix, I don't understand why it went down this way.

I wasn't thrilled with Sarah's Mom's demise either.  I think it could have been worked out a bit more realistically.

Question for anyone - what in the world was that telescoping blade weapon in the end and where in the world did it come from?

Bottom line - this movie looked great.  Gore effects were top notch, and although over the top, not cartoonishly over the top.  Even before the gore ride begun, there was a very well done creep factor in literally every scene.  Some writer/directors get it...most don't.  These 2 really impressed me.

Great movie, but not for the feint of heart.

Quoted from Dreamscale And whatever was gong on with him in his final scene is also pretty lame.

You mean the "zombie cop?" I thought that was great. Not to say he actually is a zombie. That would be retarded. But some people think that's what happened. I thought it was fairly obvious that he got shot in the head and survived, which I thought was sick. Ridiculous, yeah. But would the film be any less ridiculous if it didn't have him survive?

Honestly, I thought the biggest mistake was having Sarah escape, try the front door, find it stuck (or something) and just... give up. WTF, man?!

I think I made a mistake in my last post to say Frontier(s) was better. It's not. Inside had a better story, better filmmaking and better gore, not to mention it was way darker, nihilistic and... French.

Speaking of which, there's two more French horrors on the way. La Meute (a cross between zombie and TCM-style horror... I think) and Captifs (about illegal organ harvesting... I guess more in the Hostel vein). I would've seen both but I speak more French than I can understand. I'd rather have the subtitles.

They look good though.

Yeah, the "zombie cop".  It's funny, on IMDB, there are actually people that mistook the commentary to mean that they actually wanted him to be a zombie. Obviously not their intentions at all.  It just wasn't set up right, IMO.  The whole thing with the guy handcuffed to him and the "strange" weapon that wasn't explained didn't really work either.

So, James, what was that big telescoping blade thing and where did it come from?  What did I miss?

I liked Frontier(s) an awful lot as well, but I'd probably agree this was better, all things considered.

Quoted from Dreamscale So, James, what was that big telescoping blade thing and where did it come from?  What did I miss?

The blade is a butcher knife she sticks at the end of some pole. What that pole is, I don't know. Don't think they exist in American kitchens, anyway. Very DIY, in any case. I'll have to watch it again. I've seen it round about 5-6 times and own the DVD.

Well, that's quite the weapon she's put together there in a pinch, huh?

They were messing around with it in the making of but I didn't catch what it was supposed to be or anything.

Good flick though my friend!

And thank you Bert for the initial thread.