“It Lives Inside” (2023). Horror Movie. Review: A “neither… nor” movie. It doesn’t stand out, and it doesn’t offer anything original to the genre

It Lives Inside
Martin Cid
Martin Cid

It Lives Inside is a horror movie written and directed by Bishal Dutta starring Megan Suri.

“It Lives Inside” is yet another horror film that strictly adheres to all the conventions of the genre and, as a novelty it has little. We’ll see if it offers enough suspense and scares to make the audience consider this film original, to then be considered a classic in a couple of decades from now. We anticipate it won’t.

It Lives Inside
It Lives Inside

Movie Review

A film that delivers on its promises, but perhaps doesn’t provide that something we has hope for and look forward to in a horror film: to be surprised, startled and maybe be challenged with a thought-provoking story.

It’s part of the paradox of horror cinema that, while always under the obligation to surprise and terrify, it has repeatedly sought out the same repetitive patterns to, time and time again, give us the scares and inevitably return to a place of comfort where we forget ever having watched the film.

“It Lives Inside” is one of those horror films that fails to surprise, but with respect for the genre and good direction, it does what most horror films do, resorting to familiar settings and “typical” situations. It doesn’t astonish or linger in our darkest dreams, but it does strive to make good cinema, create a couple of chilling sequences, and, without doing anything exceptional, scare us just enough to pass through our lives without making much noise or seeming to want to.

We have seen glimpses of Hindu mythology in cinema before, and now it is in the form of a horror film. However, being as formulaic as it is, no amount of mythology (irrespective of where it is from) the film offers nothing but the familiar and clichéd kind of horror, devoid of any novel characteristics that would pique our interest, with yet another iteration of a narrative style, which is more aligned with Hollywood’s commercialism than with any new and interesting take on mythology or good story that could be inspired on it.

It Lives Inside
It Lives Inside

Our Opinion

It is not a bad film from a technical angle, but it doesn’t stand out narratively, nor seem to offer anything original to the genre.

An idea that had potential to make much more out of it than it did. The monster sequence was not as good as we had expected, but it did remind us of Sadako from “Ringu”.

Writer and Director

Bishal Dutta
Bishal Dutta

The Cast

Megan Suri
Megan Suri
Mohana Krishnan
Mohana Krishnan
Neeru Bajwa
Neeru Bajwa
Betty Gabriel
Betty Gabriel

Vik Sahay
Gage Marsh
Beatrice Kitsos
Jamie Ives
Siddhartha Minhas

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