Inside (2016)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
After the death of her husband, Sarah (Rachel Nichols) is a day away from giving birth to their baby but that night a mysterious woman (Laura Harring) breaks into her home with plans on taking the baby.
This here is a remake of the 2007 French film INSIDE and apparently it has been sitting on a shelf for a couple years before finally being released. I will admit up front that I enjoy watching remakes as I find it interesting to see someone take a different take on a familiar story. The original INSIDE is known for its vile and at times shocking violence and it doesn't take a brain scientist to know that what we saw in that film wouldn't make it to this remake.
Let me just say that everything in the original movie was a lot better than what you get here. As you'd expect, the violence and gore has been toned down to the point where you have to wonder why they even bothered to remake the film. But wait a minute, whereas the original film went for gore and violence, perhaps director Miquel Angel Vivas could take the material into a different direction and make a winning picture. Nope, that doesn't happen either and what we're left with is a watered down version of the original and even on its own this remake just doesn't work.
There are all sorts of problems with the movie including the fact that there's nothing good here. I guess you could say that Nichols' performance was good but Harring is so watered down and so bland as the killer that there's just no tension between the characters. The lack of any sort of real suspense is another major issue. It also seems as if the director is familiar with the original movie and he thinks that the viewer is too so he hints at stuff that fans of the original will remember but he just never goes through with it here. For example, when the pregnant woman is in the bathroom. Remember the scene with the scissors? Watch how it plays out here.
With no gore, no violence and no tension what are we left with? Not much. There aren't any surprises here and especially if you've seen the original. Even if you haven't seen the original this film just doesn't offer us anything. It's as if they simply didn't know what they wanted to do with the material so we're left with some hacked up version of the original. I'm not going to spoil anything but the ending is rather embarrassing as is the sequence with the cops. In fact, one of the cops here has to be the dumbest cop from any horror film I've ever seen.
INSIDE is an all around bad movie that at least manages to make the original seem even better.
