Verdict
Summary
While I’ve never been a fan of the home invasion subgenre of horror movies, They’re Inside tries to put a deeply emotional and grueling execution on it all, but it’s done in such a grating and false way that it’s difficult to put this quite in the same boat as the more well known ones like The Strangers and Funny Games.
Plot:
A film crew making a movie in a cabin in the woods gets an unexpected and gruesome surprise when they get some murderous home invaders making a movie of their own.
Review:
A found footage-type horror film that centers on a crew of indie filmmakers and actors who venture out to a comfy cabin in the woods to make a drama about dealing with incest, They’re Inside focuses on director Robin (Karli Hall) and her sister Cody (Amanda Kathleen Ward), whose heart-rending script deals with incest and molestation. Their limited cast and crew don’t realize that the script is personal to the sisters, but it causes friction between the siblings, who are trying to navigate their personal issues in front of the camera. In the meanwhile, there are some psychos out there who target video bloggers and filmmakers and murder them on camera, and these killers (who wear creepy masks) have chosen their next targets in Robin’s cast and crew while they’re making their movie. Over the next few nights, the killers play little games to mess with everyone’s nerves (like chopping wood near the cabin at night, which gets unnerving for everyone), and then they move in closer and closer, until they spring in on the filming of the movie, killing people in gruesome and awful ways, and always on camera. The climax has the killers (a man and a woman) tying three of the final survivors up, and going on at length about their motives and reasons, which culminates in a bizarre ending where the film they’re making has a strangely unsatisfying ending.
While I’ve never been a fan of the home invasion subgenre of horror movies, They’re Inside tries to put a deeply emotional and grueling execution on it all, but it’s done in such a grating and false way that it’s difficult to put this quite in the same boat as the more well known ones like The Strangers and Funny Games. I saw one recently called Jackals that was infuriating for its ultra nihilistic style, and They’re Inside is similar to all of these, but it tries going in a slightly different direction with the incessant voyeuristic point of view. I didn’t care for it at all, and when it opts for the weird art house ending, I sort of threw my hands up in the air with frustration. None of these movies are pleasant to watch, and there’s really no sense of escapism that I find necessary to truly enjoy a good horror movie, and so I’m not really sure what the point is with watching these grisly, soulless types of movies. From co-writer and director John-Paul Panelli.
Epic and Dread’s recently released Blu-ray of They’re Inside comes packed with two audio commentaries, behind the scenes videos, two short films, trailers, and more. If anyone really liked this movie, there’s enough to keep you busy here for a good long while.
