À l'intérieur (aka Inside)

There are rules in horror movies...understood agreements between viewer and filmmaker as to what can be done and what can't...promises of sorts. The filmmakers are always playing at the border of the forbidden, hinting and gesturing that they will cross that line, and the viewer sits back dreading and ashamedly hoping that perhaps this time the rule will be broken. From time to time, it gets pretty damn close. We are relieved when it remains intact. We settle back into the safe zone, the zone of having not seen what we feared to see. We have once again been successfully horrified, but not scarred. We have been threatened by the unimaginable, but the threat slunk away when the credits rolled, without making good on its word.

But then, once in a great while, a filmmaker comes along and does the unthinkable. He dances us straight into the dark, and what was once beyond the pale is suddenly all around us. The French film À l'intérieur is one of those films.

From the very beginning, we are in uncomfortable territory: our main character is pregnant and her husband has been killed in a car accident. The night before she is to be induced to give birth, her last night at home alone, a woman shows up who desires only one thing: the baby. Set on Christmas Eve in the time of the riots, the hope for help seems doubtful at best. Neighbors are out at holiday dinners; the police are preoccupied with street violence and vandalism. But, help does come. It comes again and again. Each time we are filled with hope, and each time the violence is shocking, and, in one awful instance, heartbreaking. With each newcomer the violence escalates, further bloodying the walls and damaging the mind of our already damaged main character. This is the type of movie where you find yourself talking to the screen, informing, begging, pleading. The brutality is horrifyingly exquisite. And as you think to yourself that it can't get any worse, it does. It does it with a grace that, at times, borders art. (Correction: it IS art.)

And that promise that is ultimately broken? Well, that one you'll have to see for yourself.

This movie is not for everyone. It's not even for all horror fans. No doubt some who see it will deem it vile trash, corruptive, and criminal. I thought it was well-written, well-acted, graceful, monstrous, and terrifying.






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