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It Lives Inside Review
Image Credit: NEON
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Cast:
* Megan Suri as Sam
* Neeru Bajwa as Poorna
* Mohana Krishnan as Tamira
* Vik Sahay as Inesh
* Gage Marsh as Russ
* Betty Gabriel as Joyce Dixon
Story: An Indian-American teenager struggling with her cultural identity has a falling out with her former best friend and, in the process, unwittingly releases a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness.
You know what sucked? High school. And if you didn’t think high school was that bad, congratulations on being popular. For a lot of kids, high school was an isolating experience where even those with friends typically stayed within that group. And that’s from the perspective of a white American. I can’t imagine (nor would I try) what it’d be like to be someone of a different race or culture going through high school today. Throw the usual growing up pains (differences with your parents, trying to figure out who you are) and it must be very difficult.
That’s the difference between two of the characters we see here. Samida (or Sam) has decided to change herself completely in order to fit in. She doesn’t speak Hindi (doesn’t help her white friends want her to as a sideshow trick), she ignores customs and has even abandoned her best friend Tamira. Tamira has not changed and has become and outcast. Of course it doesn’t help that she’s not sleeping and carries around a jar while staring at others. Eventually, the best friends meet up and the jar is broken, setting a monster free.
There’s a lot of familiar themes here, especially when it comes to teen supernatural movies. You can probably figure out where the story is going before it gets there. However, predictable doesn’t always mean bad. In this case, we have a different take on the material. Writer/director Bishal Dutta weaves Indian culture and aspects of Hindu religion into the story to give a familiar tale from a different perspective. This makes it feel fresh, compared to even this year’s The Boogeyman, which has a similar monster and family aspect
Dutta also has an eye for creating mood. While It Lives Inside relies on the jump scare a little too much, it’s heavy on atmosphere. There’s a scene of the creature staring at someone from a closet that is creepy (although it is undercut by a loud noise), and some of the imagery of the monster’s mythology is unsettling. I rarely praise sound design in a movie, but the use of echoes of voices, screams and even the creature’s growling adds to the tension. When the movie isn’t having doors slam or people screaming to startle the audience, you can see some effort in trying to build suspense.
Dutta is helped by a cast that’s more than capable of carrying the material. In particular, the mother/daughter dynamic between Megan Suri and Neeru Bajwa is a highlight, particularly in the second half. Suri herself is completely capable as the lead, selling moments with her face and eyes that may otherwise be spelled out in a lesser film. This includes the aforementioned scene in which a friend asks her to speak Hindi. She is able to sell how uncomfortable she is without ever saying so or providing exposition about it later.
But the star of the show is the Pishach itself. This movie is very smart in how the monster is portrayed. Sometimes it’s invisible, sometimes it’s in shadow and other times you can tell it’s rendered in CGI. But there comes a point when the creature is practical and it is an amazing effect. The camera even takes time to show it off and it should, because that monster looks amazing (in a terrifying sort of way).
Finally, the mythology of the Pishach is also interesting. It’s similar in a way to the entity in Smile, but not entirely. The idea is that it wants to isolate its victim before eventually feeding on them. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t quite stick the landing in that regard. Outside of a brief scene near the middle, we never get the sense that Sam is truly isolated, and we never see what led to Tamira getting to that point. With so much focus on her high school life in the first third, more scenes of her friends abandoning her (leading her to the decisions she makes later) would have helped add to the drama, as well as making it seem like she was in more danger.
Overall, It Lives Inside takes a very tried-and-true path. The formula is what it is and there is sometimes an overreliance on startling instead of scaring. But the atmosphere, cast and monster effects are more than enough to carry it through to being an entertaining horror film.
