INSIDE

It used to be that French cinema was synonymous with high art. From the high-minded, obtuse experiments of Godard to the sweet sentimentality of Truffaut, French cinema represented a kind of film not found in the United States, an almost existential beauty, an expansion of cinema from mere "moving pictures" to "moving art".


French fantastic cinema is somewhat of a barren wasteland, only Jean Rollin (GRAPES OF DEATH, LIVING DEAD GIRL), Henri-George Clouzot (DIABOLIQUE), and Georges Franju (EYES WITHOUT A FACE) have had any kind of long-term importance, but today there is a resurgence going on in France, a bloody New Wave stirring the pot.


Too bad it's firmly stuck in the 1980s.


Riding the coat tails of Alexandre Aja's intense and disturbing (if overblown and, thanks to an ending which all but derails the whole picture, ridiculous) HIGH TENSION, first-time filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, created INSIDE, an 80-some minute excess-fest that grows more and more idiotic (and grotesque) every minute it's on screen.


The set-up is as simple as simple gets: a young woman, recently widowed when her husband was killed in an automobile accident, stays home alone the night before she is to go into the hospital to give birth. There's a knock at the door, marking the arrival of a lone, strange woman who knows her name... and wants her baby. Along the way, every major character (and a few ancillary ones) will be off-ed in a number of horrible ways until the whole thing peters out in an incredibly downbeat ending.


The film has a few things going for it. The acting is uniformly fine, with Alysson Paradis, as the tormented Sarah, in full-on freak-out mode for all but 30 minutes of screen time, and Beatrice Dalle as the creepy, murderous Woman. With the heroine babbling non-stop and locked in a bathroom for almost the whole film, the filmmakers seemed to be relying on the character's physical condition to trigger the audience's sympathies (hence the overdone CGI in-the-womb shots of the unborn baby getting jostled and jolted about) as Sarah is given absolutely nothing to do after the initial set-up except scream and cry. What we see of her before the Woman comes a-knockin' paints her as not only un-likeable, but also completely void of personality. I'm not sure what Maury and Bustillo were trying to accomplish in their writing of this character, but they failed miserably. Perhaps if we were given more time to know Sarah before the accident we might have an idea of her humanity, a reason to care about her survival. As such, she's reduced to a sobbing, bloody wad of flesh in a bathroom. Nothing more. But she does it well enough to merit some praise. If I had to watch a woman scream and cry for an hour, this is how I'd want it to be done.


Then there's Dalle, the French equivalent of Crispin Glover, an actress who excels in, what's the best word?, strange roles. From BETTY BLUE on up to TROUBLE EVERY DAY, Dalle has always played a great nut-job and here she's incredibly creepy. My only complaint is that what could have been a much more subtle performance is turned into yet another variation on the atypical slasher movie villain. She's given the ability to completely disappear seemingly at will, apparently doesn't make any sound whatsoever when she walks, and can withstand several punishing blows and SPOILER ALERT!!! being set on fire without missing a step. What would have been best played as a one-on-one match-up is instead cheapened by unnecessarily bumping up the body count. It's a shame, too, because had it not been for the filmmakers need to turn Dalle into a (much, much) more sexy Jason Voorhees, her character would have been one of the best screen psychos, I think, of the past 25 years.


The direction is adequate but not flashy, a welcome change from the hyper-edited and overblown direction often witnessed in horror films today or the "gee whiz ain't I cool" antics of many a first-time filmmaker. Maury and Bustillo milk their very limited story for all it's worth, compiling a series of money shots that will appease many the Fulci fan, as well as giving the film a dry, serious tone that ultimately clashes with the absurdity of the screenplay. While I can't give this film a good recommendation, I am anxious to see their work in the future.


As it is, INSIDE does what it's supposed to do. It's an uncomfortable movie and incredibly bloody, at times eerie but never frightening. Not as accomplished as HIGH TENSION, not nearly as cringe-inducing as CALVAIRE, much better than the HOSTEL-esque FRONTIER(S) but far inferior to ILS, it's a good time for those people who wished horror films never left the more-is-better excesses of the 1980s.


Everyone else should avoid it.