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Harry took a look INSIDE at Fantastic Fest and his water broke!!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Babies. Pregnant bellies. Now that I’m married, I get asked “when’s the baby?” “Thinking of kids?” I’m pretty sure all married couples get asked these post wedding questions. But tonight, Yoko and I saw the film that ensured that we didn’t want to pursue the reproductive Olympics for a while.
The Weinstein Company has a new French Horror film called INSIDE. It was first being discussed around the time of Cannes – then when it got scheduled for the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight program… well, you read Copernicus’ review… right? Right.
INSIDE is an intruder film. A home invasion flick. And it’s BRUTAL. Last year’s INSIDE by Jeff Mahler was intense in a psychological manner, this French INSIDE – oh, the psyche gets plenty beat up, but the French are just many times more fucked in the head than the TEEN WOLF lovin’ Mahler.
First – in the realm of the home invasion pic… it is important to have victims that are particularly bad at defending themselves… either in pacifist ways, elderly ways, fear of family being hurt ways… or in this film, a single obscenely pregnant hot mommy I’d like to boink.
How pregnant? Well, she’s scheduled for early the next morning to go to the hospital and have the birth induced. Yeah, she’s ripe for poppin’.
The movie has a woman home invader, which is a nice shift – don’t really see that too often. And this doesn’t suck like THE HAND THAT ROCKED THE CRADLE. No, this is off the hook awesome. It played to a packed small house at midnight on a Tuesday – and right at 1:25am through 1:30am… pretty much the entire house was SCREAMING, SQUIRMING and SQUEALING in one united choir of sympathy, horror and outrage. When this film jumps the rails… everyone will feel the impact. It is seriously fucked up.
Ok. I can hear ya. “Why would I want to submit to this?” If that question is even on your mind… you probably couldn’t handle the movie. I’ll be truthful – about 40 minutes in, my wife decided to leave – and it hadn’t even gotten to the scary shit yet. Why? Well, one she was tired, two – I think she got the sense that this film was going to be intense in a manner that she wasn’t really wanting to experience.
This film does for women, what castration films do for men. That’s right… violate the sanctity of your being. This film is a traumatically entertaining experience. And, it’s French – so it’s all sorts of fucked up.
So.. How are the Weinstein’s going to handle this film? I’ll be truthful, I haven’t a clue. First, I can’t imagine the film getting past the MPAA without SERIOUS EDITING. I approve – but my threshold of gore enjoyment knows no bounds. I saw many on my row hiding their eyes and while I never hid from the film… I was squirming and trying to hold onto my skullcap, cuz the film was seriously blowing my mind.
Also – I have to say – I love FRENCH BLOOD in cinema. The color blood is just awesome. It’s such a beautifully traumatic red. The short of red that Kubrick got for THE SHINING. That we last saw with HAUTE TENSION. Here – the crimson is beautiful… the arterial sprays, the head explosions, the sounds, the gurgles, the film just does not let up.
Is it over the top?
Ya know, it’s so far over the top, it’s fucking Sputnik. That sort of out there that causes people to build bomb shelters and freak out. This film – if… somehow… it were to get released and be seen by a massive audience… would cause outrage in certain circles, it would go unscreened in certain towns, simply because the Theater owners were so freaked out.
That said – I can’t recommend it enough for those of you that love this sort of film. The theater laughed to break tension, screamed, hollered and howled at the movie. It was… a perfect midnight experience. And right now, I think I could totally handle what I hope will one day be a normal birth experience. If not, I’m gonna totally ASH up, because birthing babies can be way fucking intense… especially with some French wannabe mommy wench wanting your kid. Yeesh!
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oh i just had to
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i kinda wish i had gone to see this rather than stay in to play halo 3 all day....... and all night.....
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I don't think we've read a single bad review of ANYTHING Harry saw at this years FF....
...not that there's anything wrong with that. -
NEVER BELONGS TO ME - a South Korean film that I left about 45 minutes in because it was giving me a headache.
Frankly, the programming at FANTASTIC FEST is pretty remarkable. And the films I'm watching are based upon the recommendations of my fellow programmers at the festival - so I've got a pretty amazing guide.
As for the terrible films - as soon as a review of one arrives via Augustus Gloop, Massawyrm or someone else - I simply avoid that title, because there's always good stuff to watch. -
You might see these thoughts again with later reviews. A car crash kills a pregnant woman’s husband. Four months later she’s on the verge of birth and a stalker woman breaks into her house to cut the baby out of her womb. It’s a good premise but directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury miss huge opportunities to make it so much more. The biggest one is the stalker woman. She speaks maybe 50 words in the whole film and is pretty dumb when she could have been extremely warped, twisted, and memorable. There’s lots of stupid logistical stuff too. Plus by miscasting and other unwise choices, the pregnant mother is unsympathetic and thus I didn’t care about her. CGI shots of the baby in the womb distract. I was 10-15 minutes ahead the entire time and guessed the ending revelation about 20 minutes in. Now this is whoppingly gory with sliced arteries spewing everywhere. The gore hound in me loves that. The last ten minutes reaches a superior level of fucked-upness. Production values are good. With all due respect, some people will blab at high volumes about how great this is and I can see why some will really dig it. But a lot of people will be disappointed. I recommend watching with low expectations and enjoying what you will.
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is in this, obviously the filmmakers got themselves a bit of French acting cred there (though, admittedly she'll appear in most anything these days, still - I have a soft spot for Dalle). Looks bloody as all shit but man, pregnant babes??? I dunno it does seem a bit too rough I prefer a psycho lesbian (High Tension) getting shit walloped out of her and wacking a few people to watching a protracted drawn out excuse to "violate" a preganant woman.
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as usual
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It might not be a classic- but it was a decent stab at a different kind of horror thriller! It does not suck....
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All the talk of blood and pregnant women reminded me of SHEITAN with Vincent Cassel. Anyone else seen this wacky sample of French horror/comedy?
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Hand that rocks the cradle doesn't suck- it's not classic but it doesn't suck. You want to know what does suck? Torture Porn- esepcially the works of Eli Roth- and reading that review made me think that chances are this is another sorry torture porn effort
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as is a lot of French cinema these days. I really loved Beatrice Dalle from Betty Blue - it's one of my favorite French movies. But really, enough is enough. After watching Irreversible I thought it couldn't get any worse and now comes a home invasion movie involving a pregnant woman. And they call Ahmadinejad a madman? Maybe he should become a French director.
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When these movies see a wide release or are put on dvd, I hope that someone on AICN will do another write up about them to remind us what's worth seeing.
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"The Hand that Rocked My Crank" was not that bad at all. Fuck you Harry.
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The Ferryman was released yesterday! Wrong Turn and Flight of the Living Dead are only a few weeks away. I believe FlashPoint and Invisible Target are already on region 3 dvd. That was the major problem of the festival so far. Too many movies that are about to come out. I have liked many of the movies here but there are many that are just average or crap. Heres a full rundown of what ive seen so far.
http://tinyurl.com/pv8do -
I was there last night and one of the people SCREAMING, SQUIRMING and SQUEALING. It's honestly my favorite movie of the fest so far, but I'm a gorehound. I'm sure the Weinsteins will hack this movie to hell. Let's at least hope for an unrated DVD release.
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I was sitting about 4 seats away from Harry and his wife for Hell's Ground. I guess he didnt like it since it wasnt mentioned. I thought it was fun.
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They're talking about the baby in Harry's huge stomach. He's going to give birth to an 18 year old. Fat Fuck.
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Harry... don't tell us you managed to slip one past the goalie...
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i got tired of rape horror long ago - but ok - the US - good for you - I wont get into that discussion. Is it ok to call japanese into it mad? - then we got people doing it for their country.
so a movie about attacking a pregnant girl is good - i lost my belief in horor movies. Sorry had to say it. -
I shall take that for a compliment.
The movie rules, indeed. I was so proud of the 2 directors when I saw it, especially cause I'm a reader of Mad MOvies, the excellent French magazine into horror movies, and Alexandre Bustillo used to write for it.
Vive le gore ! -
...I saw Sheitan. It was pretty fucking awful. I was thinking this was going to be an invasion flick like that fucked up Baby Blood movie. Wasn't that french too? Anyway, I've noticed alot of the films being recommended are available to purchase on DVD in my country already, yet none of them are at my video store. What wankers. I guess I'll just have to settle for Freedom Writers and hope my room mate purchases Taxidermia.
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Flashpoint played the festival? I wanted to go and see that at the movies, but my girlfriend could not be budged, so I had to go watch Superbad instead. I hope it sucked so I didn't miss anything. Like the time I skipped Memories Of Murder.
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Sep 26, 2007 10:14:24 PM CDT
Great...another story where the woman is the bad ass...
by arnold shitzembigger
Was Josh Whedon a contributing writer? If so, the villain will be 95 pounds with the strength of Jason Vorhees. Unless she's an MMA fighter or has a gun and the men in the film don't, I don't buy it. Appreciate the twist, but let's be real...
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Eww. Yep Sheitan was quite stupid and bad. I still don't know what to make of it. Vincent Cassell as a woman was kind of frightening though.
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So I have to read Variety now to find out about Fantastic Fest scoops http://www.variety.com/blog/1390000339/post/960015096.html and what Mr Knowles has been quacking on about, eh?
"However, it took Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles to point out during the Q&A that Plainview was the "best monster" he had seen all week. Anderson responded that Dracula was in his thoughts as he was writing the screenplay."
Come on Harry, GRIP UP and RAISE YOUR GAME!
How about hauling your sweaty hide out of bed and writing a review of THIS film. -
Where's the rest of the Fantastic Fest coverage? I can't find any other coverage comparable to yalls so keep up the good work!
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Bad lady wins, cuts baby out of mother at the end, much guts and blood ensure througout. You smart kids already knew this, what with all the hints and foreboding in the now plentiful reviews, so suck it. Now ask yourself if you really need to see something like this. I'll admit I'm a bit of a gorehound - I love a movie that reminds me that I'm just meat and sinew, and that we're all as relatively fragile as a lightbulb dropped on a hardwood floor. However, I don't really see the point in showing that someone who is quite defenseless can get fucked up and mutilated like anyone else. There's a BIG difference between tragedy and mean-spiritedness - and though this one might be clever, it most certainly lacks any semblance of class (no matter how slick it looks).
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I love horror. I love gore. But I hate stupid people in horror films. Stupid cops take the cake. This is SO not worth the supposed AICN hype. What a waste of a Netflix choice.
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