Inside
Directed by	Alexandre Bustillo Julien Maury
Produced by	Franck Ribiere Rodolphe Guglielmi Frederic Ovcaric Teddy Percherancier
Written by	Alexandre Bustillo
Starring	Alysson Paradis Béatrice Dalle Nathalie Roussel Tahar Rahim
Music by	François-Eudes Chanfrault
Cinematography	Laurent Barès
Editing by	Baxter
Distributed by	La Fabrique de Films BR Films
Release date(s)	June 13, 2007 (2007-06-13)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Budget	$3 million
Box office	$786,180

Inside (French: À l'intérieur) is a 2007 French horror film directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, starring Alysson Paradis and Béatrice Dalle. It was written by co-director Bustillo, and is the first feature film from either director. It concerns the attack and home-invasion of a young pregnant woman by a mysterious stranger who seeks to take her unborn baby.^[1] The film received generally positive reviews from mainstream critics upon its release and was particularly well received among horror film critics, noting it for being a genuinely scary and brutally violent example of the new wave of French horror.

Plot [edit]

Alysson Paradis

The film opens with a shot of a baby in utero with the mother's voice soothing it. The baby recoils as if struck. Expectant mother Sarah (Paradis) has been in a car accident, and her husband has been killed. Months later on Christmas Eve, Sarah is making final preparations for her delivery the following day. Still reeling from her husband's death, Sarah is now moody and depressed.

That evening, a mysterious woman (Dalle) arrives at Sarah's door, asking to use the telephone to call for help. Sarah lies that her husband is sleeping and she does not want to be disturbed, but the woman tells her that she knows that he is dead. When the visitor persists on coming in, Sarah, a professional photographer, attempts to take her photo through a window and telephones the police. When they arrive, the woman has already vanished. The police assure Sarah that she will be fine, but arrange to have a patrol car visit throughout the night.

Upon developing her photos, Sarah recognizes the woman in the background of an earlier photo she had taken, indicating she was stalking Sarah. Sarah telephones her employer, asking to have the photos enhanced. As she goes to bed, the woman arrives in the bedroom, awakening Sarah with scissors puncturing her pregnant belly. Sarah fights the visitor off and locks herself in the bathroom, where the woman tries to gain entry. The woman makes clear that her intentions are to take Sarah's child for herself.

Sarah's employer arrives, and later her mother, both unaware of the predicament that Sarah is in. Believing her to be the attacker, Sarah accidentally kills her mother by impaling a needle into her mother's neck. Her employer is later stabbed to death by the mysterious woman. The police arrive to check up, and upon realizing what is going on, attempt to apprehend Sarah's assailant and are instead murdered.

A final confrontation ensues between Sarah and the woman, with both of them injuring each other via various household appliances. Sarah manages to gain the upper hand on her attacker and burns off half the woman's face with an aerosol container and cigarette. The woman flees, and upon being cornered by Sarah, reveals her identity; she was the other driver in Sarah's car accident and, being pregnant at the time, had lost her child.

The two are interrupted by the revival of one of the police officers; having been shot in close proximity by the woman with his riot gun, he survived the attack and was brain-damaged instead. In his current state of mind, he confuses Sarah with her attacker and brutally beats her in the stomach with his club. The woman comes to Sarah's aid and kills the officer, but it is too late; Sarah has begun to give birth and the baby is stuck.

Desperate to save the child, the woman proceeds to perform the impromptu caesarian section on Sarah with her scissors as she originally planned. As the film ends, Sarah lies dead on the stairs, drenched in blood while the woman, having been successful with her delivery, sits on a rocking chair and comforts the newborn child.

Cast [edit]

• Béatrice Dalle as La Femme
• Alysson Paradis as Sarah Scarangelo
• Nathalie Roussel as Louise Scarangelo
• François-Régis Marchasson as Jean-Pierre Montalban
• Jean-Baptiste Tabourin as Matthieu
• Dominique Frot as The Nurse
• Claude Lulé as The Doctor
• Hyam Zaytoun as Policewoman
• Tahar Rahim as Policeman #1
• Emmanuel Guez as Policeman #2
• Ludovic Berthillot as BAC Policeman #1
• Emmanuel Lanzi as BAC Policeman #2
• Nicolas Duvauchelle as BAC Policeman #3
• Aymen Saïdi as Abdel Shani Essadi

Production [edit]

Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo

Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo met each other through a mutual friend. After the meeting, Bustillo sent Maury a first draft of the script and Maury sent over some short films that he had worked on in the past. According to Maury, "The first idea with the story was to change the sex of the killer. In horror movies it’s always a guy chasing after young girls; it’s one of the clichés of the genes. So the first main idea was changing the identity of the bad guy. We wondered what was the motivation for a woman to hunt another woman?" The film was given a budget of 1.7 million Euros.^[2]

Reception [edit]

Inside received mostly positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 83% of critics gave it a positive review.^[3]

Bloody Disgusting ranked the film twelfth in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "One of the most audacious, brutal, unrelenting horror films ever made, Inside is perhaps the crown jewel of the new wave of extreme French horror films."^[4]

Honours [edit]

Both lead female actresses, Alysson Paradis and Béatrice Dalle, won the Carnet Jove Jury Award at the Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival.

Release [edit]

The DVD label Dimension Extreme picked it up for a US release in 2008.

Remake [edit]

Hollywood has shown interest in remaking the film; Maury and Bustillo were propositioned but both turned it down.^[2]

Jaume Balagueró, the director of REC, told Fangoria that he may be directing the remake in the future and that it would "accent the terror of the pregnancy situation more than the gore".^[5]

Recently, Maury mentioned that there had been some problems with the rights and the project was delayed. Furthermore, he was unsure if Balagueró’s was still attached to the project; "For us this was really like a dream because we are big fans of Balagueró’s movies. For the first time it wasn’t the case of a newbie making the movie of a big director, it was the exact opposite where a huge director is making the film of two poor French guys. So we were proud of that."^[2]

See also [edit]

• List of films featuring home invasions
• Fetal abduction

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Interview with Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury on Inside.
• Inside at Rotten Tomatoes
• Inside at the Internet Movie Database
• Inside at AllRovi