On March 14, the supernatural horror film «It Lives Inside», which is the feature debut of Bishal Dutta, an American director with Indian roots. This film has nothing to do with James Wan’s famous horror franchise, which began with «The Conjuring» (2013), but it was produced by Raymond Mansfield and Sean McKittrick of the acclaimed «Get Out» fame, as the official poster proudly announces. In the review below, we’ll tell you what techniques the young debutant Dutta uses and what exactly he’s trying to convey to the viewer.
Pluses:
an attempt not only to scare, but also to broadcast a sharp social statement; the monster looks convincing; several exciting scenes in which you really worry about the fate of the characters
Minuses:
an inordinate number of typical genre tropes and techniques; poor representation of Indian culture; and a generally weak slo-mo narrative that does not do the film any favors;
«It Lives Inside»
Genre supernatural horror movie
Director Bishal Dutta
Starring Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Betty Gabriel, Vic Sahay
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2023
Website IMDb
Young Samidha is the daughter of Indian immigrants who have moved to a cozy suburb in the United States. The girl is not very interested in the Hindu rituals imposed by her mother, and in general, she seems to want nothing to do with anything that emphasizes her national identity. Samidha has stopped being friends with her fellow countrywoman Tamira, who has become a strange school outcast that everyone avoids, and has focused on making friends with local teenagers.
One day, clearly embarrassed by something, Tamira, with a jar in her hand, asks her former friend for help. She slurredly tries to explain that she is being pursued by a mysterious force that she cannot fight alone. But far from understanding the situation, Samidha breaks the jar, concluding that her classmate has simply gone mad. However, this act does not go without consequences: Tamira instantly disappears, and Samidha learns the hard way that the dark force has turned its attention to her.
The young director Bishal Dutta admitted in an interview that after moving from India to North America at the age of 4, he paid a lot of attention to American horror films. And it is noticeable while watching. In his feature debut, Datta tries to balance on the edge of teenage horror in the spirit of «It Follows» David Robert Mitchell (the projects also have original titles that overlap — It Follows / It Lives Inside) and a purely genre product with a mythological boogeyman hiding in a dark closet. Unfortunately, we didn’t get either an interesting social statement or a scary horror film.
From the very beginning, it becomes clear that the protagonist will end up in the shoes of the unfortunate Tamira. This predictability is compounded by the fact that «It Lives Inside» is literally stuffed with typical genre tropes.
We curl our fingers. A battered notebook with gloomy fine art — check. An old abandoned house with a dark basement — check. The aforementioned trick «monster from the lumber room» — it was spoiled in the trailer. Corridor game with light — please. Plot twist «you see a monster that no one else can see and because of that, they think you’re crazy» — get it and sign for it.
The authors use these ancient clichés not so much to scare (you’d have to look for such lazy jumpscares) as to reveal the main theme. Namely, the search for self-identification and integration of Indian immigrants into an alien space, i.e., American society.
The behavior of Samidha, who tries in every way to forget about his national identity and be like everyone else, is eloquent here. As well as the extremely expressive scene where the Indian family is subjected to the judgmental views of others.
It’s a pity that Dutta and his creative team didn’t manage to formalize their message either in a powerful auteur film or at least wrap it in a bright wrapper of an exciting genre product.
The problem is that the Indian national flavor actually plays a critical role in this story, but it takes up inexcusably little film space. And the next, albeit metaphorical, monster in the closet remains a monster in the closet, which we have already seen a hundred times. The misuse of such a blatantly standart means of expressing mood as rain does not add points to the score either. It almost never ends here.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Dutta turns to the style of classic j-horror films like «The Ring» or «The Curse» when a well-known scene with a skewed aunt with long black hair appears on the screen. But her unnecessary presence looks like the director wants to cram everything into the story. The obviously limited budget does not help either: it was enough for only one teacher, who sits in a usually empty schoolroom.
The monster (here it is a Pishachas — a demon from Indian mythology) turned out to be quite convincing and very reminiscent of the Regenerador from the final part of «Resident Evil» by Paul Anderson. However, no matter how vile the local creature of the filmmakers’ imagination turned out to be, it was all conceived primarily as a demonstration of the struggle against inner demons. And their power is known to be truly devastating, unlike those rooted in myths.