À l'intérieur (aka Inside) (2007) - Um...Whoa

Of the four French extreme movies recommended to me by my dear friend Andre from The Horror Digest, À l'intérieur (aka Inside) was the only one that arrived to me with a reputation preceding it. I had read various accounts of the most steel-stomached viewer feeling an urp of queasiness upon watching certain scenes of this movie. I'd better dollars to raspberry jelly-filled donuts I know which scenes they spoke of after watching it. I had that fluttery anxiety to see things unfold and it reminded me of that same feeling arising when I first viewed movies like The Thing and The Exorcist, where my own subconscious had built up a reputation for each of those films.

Inside is, as I mentioned earlier, a French film and has many of the elements of the other French extreme films I reviewed. I'll get into some of those similarities later, but right now, let's get the introductions out of the way and dive right into the review:

Remember: Possible spoilers abound!

Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, it takes place mostly around Christmas Eve in a Paris suburb. We're given a setup as the movie begins, right in the womb where a baby rests comfortably until the screeching of tires and a horrifying crash. The baby hits its head and blood fills the amniotic sac. In the outside world, we tragically meet pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis) and her husband, Matthieu (Jean-Baptiste Tabourin). There has indeed been a horrible accident, and its claimed the life of Matthieu.

Flash forward four months, and Sarah is still bearing the physical scars of the accident. The mental scars run so much deeper, it's not even funny. Sarah has become anti-social and withdrawn (although that creepy nurse would drive me into a shell, too). Her mother Louise (Nathalie Roussel) wants her to be with family on the holiday, and everyone including her boss, Jean-Pierre (François-Régis Marchasson), only want the best for her during what has to be an insanely difficult time. Sarah just wants to be left alone with her photography and fantasies of Matthieu still being alive. Nice creepy/romantic scene when she imagines his embrace, and his hands slowly glide across her pregnant belly before she's snapped back to reality by the doorbell.

If there was ever a moment in film where you wanted to yell out "don't answer that door!," this would be it. On the porch, in the shadows, is a mysterious figure. A woman with a rather deep voice begging to use the phone as her car has broken down. Sarah's wary, and lies to the woman, saying her husband is asleep and doesn't want to wake him. The woman (Béatrice Dalle) suddenly knows Sarah by name, and knows that Matthieu is dead. She still demands to be let in. Freaked, Sarah tries to snap some pictures of the woman through a kitchen window, but only gets a faint shot of her face. The police arrive to find nothing, promising to check in on Sarah every so often.

Sarah develops the film, including shots from the park earlier that day and actually sees the woman stalking her in one of them. It's sinking in that this is really serious now. Exhausted and sure the woman is gone, Sarah goes to bed. This is where we see more of the mysterious, unnamed woman as she pads through the house, collecting various items like alcohol and scissors. Yeah, sharp objects. Pregnant woman. Insane lady. This does not add up to a desirable situation for Sarah. As you might think would happen, The Woman attempts a C-section right there in the bedroom. She gets as far as the scissors entering the belly button before Sarah is shocked awake and manages to escape to the bathroom.

The Woman is, yes, certifiable. She makes it clear that she wants Sarah's baby, and it's pretty damn obvious that she'll do anything to get it. The Woman finds her plan isn't perfect, though, as Jean-Pierre shows up to check on Sarah. Meeting him downstairs, The Woman leads him to believe she is Sarah's mother and brings him a drink. Then, like a Three's Company episode broadcast in Hell, Sarah's real mother shows up, demanding to know where her daughter is and who The Woman is. Louise heads up the stairs to find her daughter, but a case of mistaken identity causes a spike to find its way into Louise's neck. Sarah has accidentally killed her own mother. That on top of everything else - the side kicks to the emotional center of Sarah's brain are relentless.


Jean-Pierre dashes up the stairs to see what's causing the commotion and finds a bloody Sarah pleading for help. Her, and the blood-soaked body of Louise. Before Jean-Pierre can react, The Woman stabs him behind each knee, in the nether regions, and repeated in the face before slashing his throat. This woman is...a little off. Jean-Pierre isn't quite dead yet, but a pillow on the face and one random stab there is all it takes. Surely the body count can't rise any more, right?



Here come the police, with a recent teenage arrest in tow, to check on Sarah, just as promised. Two of them talk with The Woman, but they aren't convinced - Sarah's pregnant, The Woman is not. One heads up the stairs to find Louise and the splashes of blood, then tells the other to arrest The Woman. She's prepared though, and shoves a knitting needle into the cop's eye before taking his gun. The upstairs cop finds Sarah - or rather her left arm, impaled by the hand to the wall by a pair of scissors. He frees her and before he can do much of anything, half his head is blown away by The Woman, who keeps firing at the bathroom door. The cop outside hears it and drags his teenage prisoner in to investigate. They discover Sarah huddled in the blood-painted bathroom and it looks like maybe, just maybe, Sarah could get out of this. Then the lights go out. The cop tells Sarah to go to the bedroom and wait there while he and Abdel try to fix the lights. That doesn't go so swimmingly, as The Woman shoots the last cop in the head, then stabs Abdel in the forehead with the scissors.

When Sarah makes her way down the stairs, she discovers the bodies of...well, pretty much everyone. Scooping up a knitting needle, she confronts The Woman, but this time with her own twist. She aims the needle at her own belly, threatening the child this crazed lady wants so badly. Still unrelenting, The Woman brains Sarah with a toaster before crouching down to light up a gloating cigarette. Sarah's not down yet, and in a scene that actually had me cheering out loud, she sprays The Woman with oven cleaner just as she lights up. Fireball to the face! With most of her hair on fire and half her face scorched beyond recognition, The Woman retreats while Sarah gives herself an impromptu tracheotomy (which provided a real eww moment with blood bubbles). She then fashions a crude spear and searches for her assailant.

The Woman cowers in a closet and as Sarah's about to deliver the killing blow, all the cards are set on the table. Turns out The Woman does have a connection to Sarah: she was in the other car in the accident. It was her baby we saw at the beginning of the movie, and it did not survive the accident. The Woman wants Sarah's baby to make up some kind of twisted settlement in her fevered brain.

Suddenly, the lights come back on. At the junction box is the last policeman assaulted by The Woman, his stance wavering. How he's alive after being shot in the head is anyone's guess. When Sarah tries to talk to him, his confused state of mind confuses her for The Woman and he attacks her, hitting her in the stomach with a baton. He's enraged and almost demonic...I mean, look at his eyes when you see this. Also, look at the address of the house: don't know the street name, but the number is 666. Was there a secret subtext there, I wonder? From out of the blue, The Woman actually rescues Sarah, or actually the baby, by stabbing the policeman to death with the homemade spear.



Sarah's in labor, though, and The Woman calmly performs the C-section she set out to do earlier. The camera does not shy away. I mean, you are made to stare directly at Sarah's belly as The Woman does what she can to open it up and reach inside to deliver the baby. The last shots are of a defeated and dead Sarah lying on the stairs, as the scarred Woman settles into a chair with the baby, alive and presumably well. Fade to black.

Brrr.

There are a lot of constants in these French extreme films, not the least of which is a strong female lead. Not only is she usually a great actress on the real life end of things, but the character has to have some otherworldly resolve. There is also a conservation of cast members. With the exception of Frontier(s), the casts of these films I've enjoyed have been fairly small. It lends itself to the next area I found to be constant, the visceral emotions that really make up the genre's definition. Feelings of being trapped, being pursued with no routes for escape, the loss of dignity and personal power (see: hair cutting). Add to that this basic but powerful basis for fear: pregnant woman assaulted by psychotic with sharp instruments. Pregnant belly. Sharp. See, no matter what, those two phrases do not go together. Like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho capitalized on the visceral fear of naked vulnerability in the shower scene, this film takes those phrases and forces them together with disturbing results.

So, yeah, the reputation of this movie was well-deserved. If you think there might be just a little blood in this movie, you're severely underestimating it. Hell, the title credits are set against a swirling bloody background. This film tells you to leave your stomach at the door because you may lose it before it's over. But if you want something intense and just a tad over-the-top, definitely introduce it to your DVD player.

I know I'll be studying the shadows a little closer...

Frontier(s) (2007) + The Word Of The Moment: "Primal"

Remember in my review of Ils, I spoke of fear? It had crossed my mind that there would be a certain segment of the viewing population - not a large one, really - that would puff up their chests and proclaim that they would "kick ass" if placed in a situation that the protagonists of that movie faced. Everyone knows or has met someone like that. The hero of their own mind, they've probably only ever seen fear in movies or news reports from the comfort of their own home.

I'm digressing a bit, but please bear with me. What I'm getting at is that I consider fear to be a "primal" emotion. There are certain emotions hardwired into us from the dawn of time: fear, desire, pleasure, anger, and a few more. How do we often express these emotions? By eloquently stating a monologue? No, it's usually through the most primal of expressions: yelling, screaming, panting, laughing, grunting. Sounds, not words.

I wanted to bring up the "primal" angle because the movie I just experienced, Frontière(s) (aka Frontier(s)), brought up the primal elements in nearly every part of the film. The film, which definitely falls under the horror subgenre "French extreme," is from 2007, and is written and directed by Xavier Gens. It stars a very fine cast headed by Karina Testa as Yasmine or Yaz. Hm, I'm seeing a trend here: strong female leads in the three French extreme films I've viewed, both in acting and in the characterization. This is a good trend, as the actresses I've seen warrant worldwide attention for their skills and a strong female lead is always welcome.

Let's dive into the recap: right away, we're introduced to a France that is falling apart. An extreme right-wing government has been voted in and protests are plunging the streets of Paris into chaos. Fresh off a robbery, we meet two groups of young folks trying to escape. Yasmine helps her brother, Sami, to a safehouse to nurse his worsening bullet wounds. Tom, Farid, and Alex are the others, and they're the ones with the money and the police tail. Eventually, they all meet up, but Sami's in bad shape. Yaz wants to get him to a hospital, but the others think he may rat on them. Tom and Farid take a separate car into the country on their way out of France, and to wait for the others. Yaz and Alex, whose baby she's pregnant with although they have broken up, take Sami to the hospital. There, Sami dies, and Yaz and Alex barely escape the police who show up there. In this opening sequence, we're privy to the personalities of our wild bunch. Yaz is emotional but headstrong. Alex is a hothead, but his toughness is a facade for regret. Tom is a douche, and Farid is quiet and almost innocent.

Speaking of the douche and the innocent, they stumble upon a very, very rural motel to rest up for the night and wait for the others. Tom's digging it because the two women they meet there, Gilberte and Klaudia, are more than receptive to his douchey pick-up lines. A fearsome specimen, Goetz, shows up to encourage the love motel shenanigans. Goetz, by the way, is played by Samuel Le Bihan, who played Grégorie de Fronsac in one of my absolute favorite movies, Les pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf). To say these were two different roles is an understatement.

Angry butchers: a horror staple.

Everything seems great for Tom and maybe Farid. Tom's loving the wanton sex the women offer, while Farid is less than enthused, claiming he has a "girlfriend." The motel even offers a home-cooked meal of...uh...something or another fried up in pork fat. As a bonus, "Mom" sits nearby to have her meal spoonfed, even if some of it pops out of her throat tube. When Farid refuses to eat the pork fat because of his religion - he's Muslim - the family seems not just offended, but angry.

While Tom and Farid discuss what just happened, a new guy bursts onto the scene, this time brother Karl. He's pissed that Tom insulted the women and threatens the guys, who fight back. They don't get far before Tom is floored by a blunt object to the face and back, and Farid is held at gunpoint by Karl. But, you gotta hand it to these guys, they do fight back in the face of fear. They don't "kick ass," but they do take the opportunity when it arises. Stabbing Karl with scissors, Farid snags Tom and they escape. For a while anyway. Goetz, in pursuit, runs them off the road and down a mineshaft before leaving them for dead.

The pair is still alive, though, and cut into the nearby mine for what I thought was such an intense part, I could barely take it. See, one of my greatest fears is dying alone in a tight tunnel, stuck and unable to move in either direction. Just add water, and my fear intensifies. Would I kick the tunnel's ass? Probably not. Farid panics and actually grows a pair (something Tom told him to do earlier in the movie) while Tom weeps for his mother, which I though was a nice, sad touch. Tom does make it through the tunnel, where he meets the rotund Hans, who brains him and drags him out. Farid scrambles back the way he came, where he must face some weird scraping, scuttling noises. Poor Farid, though. He makes through so much before getting trapped in a steam room-type gimmick and is basically melted to death by Hans. He was a tough little bastard, though.

Alex and Yaz show up at the motel, but are given the runaround. Their friends, they're told, are at the nearby hostel (uh-oh, that word is never good in a horror movie). Alex and Yaz arrive and meet doll-like, hunched Eva. While Alex heads for the bathroom, which is across the courtyard of the old mine facility, Yaz meets "Father," a former Nazi who settled in the French countryside. I mean, you know something is off when Yaz scans the dining room and sees old pictures of Nazi banners and a Nazi officer (presumably Von Geisler, the Father). Alex hears sounds and explores the facility, where he finds Tom, who is by Jove still alive. He's been meathooked upside down and implores Alex to run. Alex, realizing the gravity of their situation, rushes in to get Alex, but the two are subdued by the Von Geisler family. Seems the old man in his infinite, hateful, and deranged mind, wants to recreate a master race and despite her "impurity," wants Yaz to be the brood mare for his son Karl.



Alex and Yaz are chained up in the hog pen, but Alex manages to free Yaz by straining enough on the rusty chain. Yaz digs and digs in the hog poop and dirt to create enough room to crawl under the iron gate, but pauses to admit to she still loves the father of her child. As much of a bravado-spouting tough guy Alex acted like in the beginning, he really was a caring, decent guy under it all. Yaz runs and runs, until she meets a guy driving along the country road. Yay, she's rescued!

No. It's Goetz.

Yaz is returned to the compound, where she's put right back in the pen with Alex. While she was gone, Von Geisler severed Alex's Achilles tendons so he wouldn't escape. Von Geisler wants Yaz readied to be betrothed, and kills Alex in cold blood. When Yaz awakens, she's in Eva's room. Eva befriends her and, while she cuts her hair (in a scene very reminiscent of Martyrs - removal of the hair to demoralize - like Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut), tells her tragic tale. She's not related to the other nutjobs and after having been kidnapped, has been a similar brood mare to Hans. Their children are not "perfect," so they are the ones scratching around in the mine.



At the "wedding dinner," Von Geisler places Karl in charge of the family and proclaims he and Yaz "married." Here, the tension between family members is palpable. Goetz thinks he should be in charge, and Von Geisler makes it known he is only proud of Karl. Yaz is in a hopeless situation, but the look on her face as she remains defiant is encouraging. She hasn't given up yet. Quicker than The Flash, Yaz holds Von Geisler at knifepoint and demands to leave. The family starts to fall apart pretty quickly. Von Geisler wants all guns down, but Hans wants to prove himself and says he will kill both to stop Yaz. He makes good on his word, firing, but only killing his father. Karl fatally shoots Hans as Yaz makes her escape.

Into the mine Yaz goes, first dealing with Goetz in a particularly nasty manner. You see the implement of his demise right there, and you know it's going to be used. It's a little like Chekov's Gun in theater: you introduce something like that, you best use it before the play's over. Karl traps her in an elevator and it all seems lost. But you can't help but notice what happens when Karl says "au revoir." I actually shouted out "ha!" when it happened. Karl won't be getting up from that head wound.

Now this is someone ready to kick some ass.

Eva tries to help Yaz escape, but the last two Von Geislers, Gilberte and Klaudia show up like a couple of Tarentino femme fatales, firing a hail of bullets at Yaz, who is also armed. Yaz fires on a gas tank and boom goes the...uh, gas tank. No dynamite, but just as effective. In a final battle with Gilberte, Yaz reverts to true primal brutality and uses her teeth as a final, desperate way to win the fight. And as she finally gets away into the waiting arms of the police, she breaks down in a series of cries and screams.

Primal. The yelling and the screaming. Yaz barely speaks during the last half of the movie. She's crying and screaming, whether in fear or rage, or both. Primal elements cover her in the film in dirt and blood. Besides the earthen dirt, she's nearly consumed by fire and is cleansed by rain - more primal elements. The tunnels of the mine: forcing a primal fear in not only the characters, but the viewers. Fear of the dark, of strangers, cramped places, the unknown. The lust that lures Tom and Farid deeper into the trap: primal. The desire for money that fuels the gang to commit robbery in the first place. The rage of Yaz as she finally snaps. It's all there.

Now, I could just be reading what I want into it, and it may just be a really intense, bloody French torture movie. That said, I enjoyed it as a direct line into our primitive selves. We can always speculate what we would do in these extreme, fearful situations. Some of us, like Yaz, could bring ourselves to kick ass. But who knows? Fear is primal, and it's the part of us we can't control.

Until next time, make sure your shelters are secure and I'll see you from the skies.

Martyrs (2008)

So I was looking for something different. I often jump around the international horror genre and thought, "where are some places of which I'd like to see more?" I didn't feel like a zombie movie (I know, shock of shocks) and have recently had a string of disappointments in the Japanese ghost genre so I wanted to have a break from that for a while. I'm always open to recommendations and the one for the 2008 French film "Martyrs" came from Andre Dumas, author of the great horror blog The Horror Digest. She did not steer me wrong on this one. Not by a long shot.

"Martyrs" was directed by Pascal Laugier and not only stars but showcases the tremendous acting talents of Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï. I mean, they are so good in this, my paltry words do little justice to their talents.

As I begin, let me tell you that to discuss too much of the plot is to give too much away. The twists and reveals that unfold in this bloody thriller are so much a part of the ride, it'd be like showing you a blueprint of a roller coaster, then taking you on it. No way. Much like the first time I road a roller coaster a mere seven years ago when my brother said, "let's just ride the biggest one and see if we like it." "Martyrs," much like that roller coaster, was something I liked very much. So I'll show you the roller coaster, which may involve some little things revealed, but it's up to you to ride it.



I'll take you only so far in the recap, but after that, you're on your own. A young girl, bloodied and beaten, stumbles out into the harsh daylight from a run-down abattoir (full of rust and decay - see my earlier post on how much I enjoy buildings like that). She is tense with fear and adrenaline, and as she starts running, she allows the screams to finally escape. The girl, Lucie, is rescued and raised at an orphanage as the investigation into the building reveals nothing but some remnants of her torture. Standing out in particular is the chair to which she was chained, a hole in the seat providing a place for her to relieve herself. Immediately, you, the viewer, want to get your hands on the vile filth who put poor Lucie through that.

At the orphanage, Lucie is at first anti-social and withdrawn. One brave, compassionate little girl, Anna, reaches out to her and becomes her best friend and sister figure. But being friends with Lucie isn't easy. The nightmares never left her. Not only that, there is a mysterious, violent figure that haunts and attacks her.

Cut forward 15 years. An affluent French family enjoys a nice breakfast full of banter and teasing, mixed in with some teen angst. The daughter is a champion swimmer. The son is a restless genius. The doorbell rings and as the father answers it, an adult Lucie (Jampanoï) blows him away with a double-barreled shotgun. Weeping and shaking, Lucie systematically kills each member of the family before breaking down, then calling Anna to come help her. Anna is terrified. Lucie was supposed to confront the couple. Why? From a newspaper article on the daughter's swimming exploits, Lucie swears the parents are the couple who tortured her all those years ago. Swears that it's them. But Lucie has some serious problems. That mysterious person, a horribly disfigured, growling woman, repeatedly stalks and attacks her in the home. Anna is there to calm Lucie down, even getting her to sleep, but it's no easy task. Anna takes it upon herself to dispose of the bodies, but even that has its complications, as you will see.




It's not long after Lucie's final breakdown that the movie takes another of its sharp, 90-degree angle turns and almost throws you from the ride. Oh, yeah, and get ready for more because they're coming. Did I mention the bloody, brutal house of horrors section of the ride? Yeah, steel yourself for that, too, because it is relentless. "Martyrs" takes you from believing one thing, to revealing that there is something much, much deeper. Much, much more sinister. There is a moment while Anna is talking to her estranged mother on the phone from the family's house that involves a door. A door that wasn't there just minutes before. It is the moment that your roller coaster gets that much more thrilling, more intense. What happens after that will run your poor little soul straight through the wringer. You will learn what the title of the movie means. Let me just say two words as a clue: manufacturing martyrs.

The ending is...well, I won't give you a shred of what happens in the last portion of the movie, but it's open for interpretation. It will leave you thinking about it long after you power down your DVD player. To me, that means something. I haven't mulled over an ending like this since "The Mist."



I cannot gush enough about this movie. The acting set the bar high. The photography and direction is beautiful, bordering on Hitchcockian. I understand that Laugier is tabbed to direct the remake of Hellraiser. I'm not often keen on remakes, but Clive Barker's creation would be in good hands if this film is any indication of the type of product Laugier will put out. Oh, and the twists and turns, the twists and turns...

It is a roller coaster that will blow your mind, slug you in the gut, and headbutt you...and you'll ask for more.

So make some popcorn and enjoy the ride.