Inside

If there was a prize for the worst Christmas Eve in film history, it would easily go to grieving young mom-to-be Sarah (Alysson Paradis). Not that the time leading up to the holidays had been exactly kind to her, either. Four months earlier, more than halfway through her pregnancy, she was the driver in a car accident that claimed the life of her husband. And now, she’s about to face the daunting reality of bringing a child into the world alone.

The first film of a fruitful eight-title (and counting) horror collaboration between Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury lured audiences in with effortless, rapid plotting and jarring levels of visceral violence. That it was received so warmly is likely because the stunningly crafted Inside manifests a wide array of female fears through a very pregnant woman in peril, alone at night, stalked by an unhinged intruder intent on stealing her baby. Add to that some heavy-duty motherly issues, like losing a child, apprehension about one’s parenting capabilities, fighting for the life of an unborn baby, and even accidental matricide.

The New French Extremity found a perfect subject in home invasion, with two of its 2000s mainstays, Alexandre Aja’s High Tension and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs, notably relying in part on torment in confined dwellings. Aside from an introductory accident scene so commonplace in trauma horror, plus a hospital visit, the entire action of Inside unfolds in Sarah’s house in suburban Paris. It’s the kind of place that might normally be seen as super cozy, but here is pure shadowy menace. As the name of France’s modern film movement implies, these movies go hard in their gruesomeness, and won’t be stomached by all. Inside is especially not recommended for pregnant women or those prone to high anxiety—this is an exceptionally unsettling film. We’re even treated to the occasional reaction shot of the (bad CGI) fetus from inside the womb to intensify the emotional impact.

Not feeling particularly festive, Sarah chooses to have one final peaceful night at home before the procedure that will induce her overdue baby into the world. But peace is far from what she’ll get. The stranger (a perfectly cast Béatrice Dalle)—credited only as “La Femme”—who comes knocking on her door, asking to use her phone, is turned away by Sarah, unnerved upon learning that the visitor knows her name and little details of her life. But in typical horror-villain fashion, La Femme maneuvers her way in somehow; the image of her dark form standing next to Sarah’s bed is utterly chilling. We eventually learn why this vengeful woman has come for the baby, a mission she will stop at nothing to accomplish, though the arrivals of assorted pop-in guests—Sarah’s boss, her mother, and a few cops checking in on her after she reported the initial incident—complicate the sinister proceedings. But no person (or cat) is safe in the home now under the control of the madwoman, who makes grisly use of household items such as scissors and knitting needles. Again, this is one gore-soaked movie, with beautifully orchestrated violence (on the fullest display in its unrated version). Even the entrancing opening credits roll over flowing blood.

In 2016, Miguel Ángel Vivas remade Inside—his savage, stellar 2010 home-invasion movie, Kidnapped, in theory making him a good candidate for the assignment—but by toning down the bloodshed that made the original so memorable and updating it with a tamer (and supremely stupid) ending, he only sanitized the first film’s effectively aggressive brutality. Bustillo and Maury’s version refuses to relent. It’s devastatingly and unapologetically grim, and still the duo’s finest work.