Much like roller coasters and hard liquor, the pregnant should stay well away from this.
"Open it, Sarah. Don't be afraid. You don't want that child. I'll take good care of him..."
— La Femme
Inside ("À l'intérieur") is a French home invasion horror film released in 2007 and co-directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, noted for its extreme gore and violence.
On a bleak, rainy day, a pregnant photojournalist named Sarah Scarangelo is involved in a grisly two-vehicle crash that kills her husband, Matthieu. Skipping ahead four months, the film depicts a now bitter, detached, and depressed Sarah being told by her doctor that she should go into labor the next day, Christmas. Preferring to be alone to wait out the inevitable birth, Sarah blows off her mother, Louise, and is given a lift home by her boss, Jean-Pierre, who she arranges to have drive her to the hospital the next morning.
As Sarah tries to get comfortable in her desolate little house, she is interrupted by a knock at the door. A mysterious woman with a pair of scissors (referred to simply as "La Femme") asks if she can borrow Sarah's phone because her car broke down. When Sarah refuses, La Femme refers to Sarah by name and reveals she knows about the car accident which took Matthieu's life...
Needless to say, things go south from there.
Noted as being a prime example of Gorn, this picture has so much bloodshed it almost comes off as a non-comedic splatter film. Suffice to say, Nightmare Fuel and Nausea Fuel are in high supply.
In 2016, there was a Spanish-American remake with Rachel Nichols.
Shouldn't be confused with the 2016 game Inside, nor Bo Burnham's 2021 special.
Note: Due to the nature of the film, many of these tropes contain massive spoilers. You Have Been Warned.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Hearing someone approach, Sarah attacks them with a knitting needle. It's actually her own mother.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Towards the climax of the film, Sarah sprays La Femme with a canister as the latter leans over her and lights a cigarette, setting her head on fire.
- Alliterative Name: Sarah Scarangelo.
- Ax-Crazy: A more lucid, but no less violent, example.
- Axe Before Entering: La Femme never succeeds in actually breaking through the washroom door, but does punch little holes in it with her scissors.
- Baby Be Mine: La Femme's intentions.
- The Bad Guy Wins: La Femme succeeds in cornering and disemboweling Sarah, killing her, to get the baby. It's left ambiguous if the baby itself survived or not.
- Averted with the ending of the remake, however, as La Femme drowns and Sarah's able to give birth ala water birth.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Just in case you weren't sure how villainous La Femme really is, her snapping Sarah's cat's neck should do the trick.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted. Sarah is slashed across her mouth with a pair of scissors. La Femme is seriously disfigured via Sarah's Aerosol Flamethrower.
- Blood from the Mouth: Sarah, on several occasions.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: Sarah spends roughly ninety percent of the film covered in blood.
- Boom, Headshot!: The second officer's death.
- Bowdlerized: The version available at most Blockbusters apparently cut out around seven minutes.
- Camera Fiend: Sarah. Comes with being a photojournalist.
- Camping a Crapper: As the second officer is helping Sarah out of the washroom, La Femme appears to blow his head off.
- Chained Heat: The third officer is forced to drag Abdel along by a leash he also attaches himself to while looking around Sarah's house.
- Death by Adaptation / Spared By Adaptation: The remake changes the fates of La Femme and Sarah to have the former die in the end and the latter survives.
- Determinator: La Femme will stop at nothing to get Sarah's baby, not even getting half of her face melted off.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Just as Sarah gains the upper hand, an officer that we were lead to believe La Femme had earlier killed turns out to still be alive, and in a deranged state he attacks Sarah, causing her to go into labor and become helpless.
- Disproportionate Retribution: As tragic as the accident was, there's no indication that Sarah is to blame. This doesn't stop La Femme from wanting Sarah's baby in exchange for the one she lost.
- Downer Ending: La Femme manages to finally kill Sarah and take her baby.
- Duct Tape for Everything: After giving herself a tracheotomy, Sarah duct tapes the wound.
- Enhance Button: Sarah takes a photo of La Femme standing outside her house, but the lighting is so poor she can hardly make out her appearance. She calls her editor to ask him if he can blow up the photo.
- Evil Is Petty: La Femme randomly kills Sarah's cat by crushing its head.
- Facial Horror: When Sarah sprays an aerosol can at La Femme while she lights up for a cigarette. The resulting third-degree facial burns, hair loss, and disfigurement are far from pretty.
- Final Girl: Subverted. Sarah starts out as a Damsel in Distress, but she eventually graduates to Action Survivor status despite being this close to giving birth. While she does a serious number on the Woman, it wasn't enough since Sarah still gets killed at the end.
- Flashback: Near the end, the opening car crash is reshown from La Femme's perspective.
- Foreign Remake: After some time in
Development Hell, a North American remake materialized in 2016, nine years after the film's initial release. - For the Evulz: Sarah claims the rioter's real motive is just being destructive for it's own sake.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Sarah is talking to the police, La Femme can be seen going up the stairs for a split second.
- Freudian Excuse: La Femme was the other driver in the crash that killed Matthieu, and lost her baby in it, something she came to blame on Sarah.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: An unkind nurse (who does it in the hospital right next to Sarah, no less) and La Femme are the only characters shown smoking.
- Gorn: When the title credits play over rippling pools of blood with what appears to be fetuses in them, you know you're in for a messy ride.
- Groin Attack: La Femme stabs Jean-Pierre in the crotch with her scissors.
- High-Pressure Blood: While the film tends to be more realistic than other slashers when it comes to the Gorn, this still occurs from time to time. Most notably, the bloody geyser erupting from Louise's neck when she is ambushed and killed by Sarah.
- Hope Spot: Various people stopping by, and the deranged final officer attacking Sarah and rendering her completely helpless just after she overpowers La Femme.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The film is set around Christmas.
- Idiot Ball: La Femme insisting Jean-Pierre stay for drinks instead of just letting him leave, three different police all failing to use their radio to call for help (including one who has just heard gunshots), and Sarah simply dropping the handgun that the police gave her.
- Impaled Palm: La Femme stabs a pair of scissors through Sarah's hand into a wall, preventing Sarah from moving.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Basically the premise of the film. A pregnant woman is attacked by a stranger who wants to steal her baby. With scissors. During Christmas Eve.
- Improbable Weapon User: La Femme's primary weapons are a knitting needle and a pair of scissors.
- Improvised Weapon: Early on, Sarah uses a lamp to bash La Femme, who later returns the favor by bludgeoning Sarah with a toaster.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Sarah does this to herself towards the end of the film as well.
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: Choking on her own blood, Sarah resorts to this.
- I Want My Mommy!: In a dramatic use of this, Sarah is reduced to screaming for her mother as La Femme cuts her womb open.
- Kick the Dog: La Femme murdering Sarah's cat.
- Man Bites Man: Sarah bites La Femme's lower lip off.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: La Femme's line that Sarah already killed her once, along with Sarah being told that no one else survived the car crash, fuels this.
- Meaningful Background Event: La Femme appears wandering around several times, in a very Michael Myers-esque fashion.
- Named by the Adaptation: In the 2016 remake, the woman in the "La Femme" role is named Madeline Sherman, (the name can be read off an envelope in Madeline's house.)
- Nightmare Sequence: Sarah vomiting up her baby.
- No Name Given: La Femme, and every officer.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: Where La Femme keeps most of her makeshift weapons.
- Not Quite Dead: Jean-Pierre, and the third police officer.
- Number of the Beast: Sarah's house is number 666.
- Older Than They Look: Louise doesn't look too much older than her daughter Sarah, and this was probably Jean-Pierre's thought when La Femme pretended to be Louise.
- Of Corsets Sexy: La Femme, though she discards it early on.
- One-Word Title: The English title is Inside.
- Orifice Evacuation: Sarah has a nightmare about her baby forcing its way out of her mouth.
- Paint the House Red: The Movie
- Pet the Dog: Subverted. After petting and coddling the cat, La Femme crushes its skull in her bare hands, and casually throws the body aside.
- Police Are Useless: The police are powerless to stop La Femme. Three of them check in on Sarah, and despite outnumbering La Femme and being armed, all of them are quickly butchered.
- Potty Failure: After holing up in the washroom, Sarah pees herself (or her water breaks, whichever).
- Pregnant Badass: What Sarah is forced to become.
- Reaction Shot: Mostly from the fetus.
- Red Shirt: Abdel, a suspected vandal arrested by some officers sent to check in on Sarah.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The backdrop of the Paris riots.
- The Reveal: La Femme was the other driver in the accident that killed Matthieu, and miscarried because of it.
- Shear Menace: La Femme's weapon of choice is a long pair of scissors.
- Shirtless Scene: Sarah has a fantasy about her dead husband Matthieu in which he's shirtless.
- Shrine to the Fallen: Sarah has erected one for Matthieu.
- Sickening "Crunch!": Sarah's cat getting its head crushed.
- Token Minority: Abdel is the only character with North African heritage in a cast otherwise made up of French people.
- Too Dumb to Live: The officers, who fail to radio for help even after they've heard the gunshots.
- Traumatic C-Section: La Femme performs an impromptu one on Sarah at the end of the film. Sarah doesn't survive.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: A depressed Sarah imagines Matthieu caressing her, but this is cut short by a shot of him having his head smashed into a windshield.
- Two-Faced: La Femme, after being burned.
- Undercrank: Randomly used in a scene where La Femme lights up a cigarette.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Happens to Sarah as a symptom of her pregnancy.
- Window Pain: Early on, La Femme smashes one of Sarah's windows as an intimidation tactic.
- White Shirt of Death: Sarah wears a white nightgown for most of the film. By the end, it's completely red.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: La Femme was driven insane by the loss of her unborn child.
- Yandere: La Femme is an incredibly rare platonic example. She will do anything to ensure that she can have Sarah's baby all to herself.
- Your Head Asplode: The second officer's death.
