Film Review - Inside

Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo made one of the biggest marks of the New Wave of French horror with this slick, sickly slasher. Alysson Paradis plays a pregnant, depressed widow seeing out the final hours of her labour when a sinister hooded Beatrice Dalle turns up on her patio, malice aforethought. 

What follows is a tremendous thriller. My wife was about five months pregnant when I watched this and that perhaps added to the threat (and made me incredibly glad I didn't watch it with her as well) but it's nevertheless one of the more effective home invasion slashers as Dalle's character (credited only as La Femme) turns Paradis' apartment into a killing zone, wiping out potential helpers with a little help from an elastic set of physical laws. Several of the set-pieces are astonishingly visceral and shocking, such as the moment when Sarah is terrorised into accidentally killing her own mother with a hair clip, while others - such as the arrival of a pair of policeman with a delinquent prisoner in tow - are unbearably tense.

The gore is amped right up and the kills are well-thought out while Dalle is plainly enjoying herself as the insane Femme, who eventually gets a motive even if you'd be happy enough without it. Paradis is also very good as she finds something to fight for even as the script never forgets she's nine months pregnant. A cult classic, but don't watch it if you've got one in the oven yourself.