Cesarienne

I would like to write about a movie that still haunts me, as it evokes very nostalgic feelings and mixed impressions from several rewatches.

 This is the 2007 French film "Inside." 

I saw it when I was very young, when I first started attending elementary school. More specifically, I didn't see the entire movie at that time, but only a moment where the bloodied and pregnant main character was trying to escape from a woman in black with sharp scissors.

I don't remember how I felt at the time, but when I was watching French splatter movies and came across "Inside," I recognized the screenshots and hoped to see a true French hidden gem.... but

In my opinion, Inside has a number of serious problems that prevent me from calling the film excellent. More like just good. Inside's main strength is its discretion. The film tells the story of the main character, Sarah, who is about to give birth. The story itself is presented in a very dynamic manner, leading the viewer through a series of interesting situations.

The story is extremely simple, but that's not the problem. The problem is a number of very questionable moments from a common-sense standpoint. The film has many... many of them. The stupidity of the police officers who don't take Sarah's challenge seriously, Sarah's boss who mistook the rather youthful villain for the heroine's mother, the zombie-like cop who came back from the dead, and the traditional "not finishing the villain off when it counts." It's also completely unclear: if the nameless villain wanted Sarah's child so badly, then why couldn't she have waited until she gave birth and then stolen the baby from the hospital? Especially since, as I understand it, Sarah doesn't really value the child.

Therefore, the script is the weakest part of the film. It's funny that a simple plot was ruined by the stupidity of the script, as if they intentionally tried to turn the film into a exploitation movie. The film is saved by the violence scenes, which are just as numerous as the stupidity. The violence scenes are repulsive and project the characters' physical suffering onto the viewer (which I really enjoyed, as it made me feel like a little kid again when I first saw the film). However, this is not a horror film. Alexander Aja (also from France, like the creators of Inside) was able to horrify the viewer with the maniac's atrocities in 'Haute tension'. Although GORE works in Inside, it is not in the right direction.

I was disappointed by the ending. The main character, who is pregnant, goes through hell, overcomes, and fights for her life. But for what? To die at the end? This ending devalues all of Sarah's suffering and the deaths of other characters. In horror movies, for a bad ending to work, there needs to be a corresponding mood, and the authors need to prepare the audience for the possibility of a tragic outcome. Notable examples include Adam Neville's novel "The House of Small Shadows," Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," and Ben Wheatley's "Kill List."

As a result, compared to other great French slasher films (especially 'Haute tension'), Inside falls short in terms of its script. Therefore, the reason why the film has been featured in various top lists and has won several grand prizes can be attributed to the lack of horror films at the time that were as shocking and uncompromisingly violent.