It Lives Inside – Neutered Horror That Plays It Too Safe

It Lives Inside is the newest supernatural horror thriller from Neon and marks the feature debut of director Bishal Dutta. The story centers around Sam (Suri), an Indian-American teenager struggling and continuing to reject her Indian heritage to fit in with everyone else. After a falling out with her former best friend, Sam unwittingly releases a demon that latches onto her former best friend that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness and has to come to terms with her heritage to defeat it. The film has a great premise that on paper could’ve made for a great and also terrifying horror thriller. However, the end result is way too derivative and plays things too safe to frighten and chill audiences as much as it wants to.

While it is far from a bad film, a lot of redeeming qualities keep it quite watchable and mostly entertaining throughout. Its biggest strength is Suri and her strong lead performance as Sam. Sam is a flawed character who makes mistakes like any teenage girl in her situation would, but she always feels grounded, and Suri does a great job at keeping her likeable and easy to root for. Meanwhile, Bajwa and Gabriel turn in strong supporting turns as Poorna and Joyce and their emotionally-layered scenes with Suri are among the best of the film. Dutta also does a good job at creating a creepy atmosphere that successfully builds dread and tension with each passing scene. He definitely got a good eye behind the camera and crafts some pretty effective scares throughout even if he falls short in other areas. The representation angle by crafting a horror film primarily centered around Indian characters and how effective it showcases Indian culture in making it a key element in the story should be applauded.

Outside of representation, the film feels like any other horror film from the past 5 years. A large reason as to why it never fully takes off is because it just isn’t very scary and never gets under the skin of audiences as much as it clearly tries to throughout. There are some well done sequences and effective moments of tension, but there are also way too many ineffective jump scares that annoy more than scare. Starting off genuinely creepy, as the film goes on and gets bigger and bigger, it increasingly loses its effect. It also doesn’t help that it was stuck with a 14A/PG-13 rating to hold it back as it could have easily taken a lot of scenes way further had they went for the R rating as some of its kills feel tame or cut off at the knees.

There’s an interesting story in here somewhere, however, it doesn’t get a chance to shine while its central mystery isn’t as engaging or creepy as one would hope. Outside of Suri’s Sam and Gabriel’s Joyce, most of the characters aren’t very memorable or all that interesting either, making it hard to care about them. While the creature design is pretty cool and suitably creepy, it is kept in the shadows for way too long and is too obscured overall.

In the end, It Lives Inside is a very middle-of-the-road horror film, but there are certainly worse choices out there. For those who may hold a faint interest in it, it is a worthy rental or stream down the line especially during spooky season. Even though it may not seem that wat based on this review, it is not a bad film by any means and while its hopes and ambitions may not have been fully realized here, Bishal Dutta does have promise as a director.

still courtesy of Elevation Pictures*

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/