16th January 2015, 07:31 AM
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| Cult Don Cult Labs Radio Contributor Good Trader Senior Moderator | | Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: The Land of the Prince Bishops | |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop INSIDE - I was trying to move around some towering piles of DVDs the other day when a copy of 'Inside' fell from atop one tottering mound and hit me on the head. Did I take it as a sign that I should really stop all this crazed disc buying, which devours space as well as cash (and time, if I go as far as watching all this stuff)? No, I took it to mean that I needed to sit down again with 'Inside', which I hadn't seen for years. The cosmos spoke, and I pressed play etc. Well, 'Inside', I'd forgotten how graphic it was. For some reason, I think of the mid-noughties as the time when horror got really gory again, although historically that's more than likely to be bollocks. But there certainly was quite a lot of nasty French stuff being released then, and 'Inside' was part of that very splattery wave. Most will probably be familiar with 'Inside', but for those in need of a recap it's basically about a pregnant photographer, about to give birth (on Xmas eve), who finds herself stalked and eventually terrorised by a shadowy figure. Some quite intense carnage happens along the way. It's great, better than I remembered it, actually... Beatrice Dalle in particular is a really strong, intimidating presence, and, besides the closed location and the oppressive visual style, is at the root of 'Inside's claustrophobic atmosphere. Some of the images towards the end are amazing, including Dalle, her face hideously mangled and burned, cradling a foetus in the dark. The film drew a lot of comparisons to Fulci era Italian stuff, and these kind of visuals rather than necessarily the gore make me think of that brand of crepuscular junk-surrealism. Very much recommended if you haven't seen it already, definitely a high point of last decade's horror cinema. | I agree about Inside being one of the strongest of the 'New French Extremity' films, along with another superb home invasion film, Them (Ils, 2006) and Martyrs (2008). The only part I didn't particularly like were the slightly unconvincing CGI inserts of the foetus.
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