CINEMA
IT LIVES INSIDE (2023)
MPAA: PG13.
Release Date: 09/22/23 [Cinemas]
Genre: Drama. Horror. Thriller.
Studio: NEON.
"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."
OUR MOVIE REVIEW:
Step aside Mr. Babadook, the Pishach is feeding on our mental insecurities this fall in Bishal Dutta's debut feature It Lives Inside.
High school student Sam (Megan Suri) rejects her Indian roots and prefers the comfort of conforming to the American culture at her school. When her old best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) asks Sam for help regarding an evil entity that she has contained in a glass jar, Sam writes it off, and then accidentally releases it. Sam must learn to accept her family's culture in order to stop the evil before it swallows her whole.
One of the things that freshened up an otherwise familiar plot was the inclusion of a helpful adult character. We so often see teen horror films where the adults are conveniently never around or simply don't believe their kids when they say something is wrong. Sam's mom believing her makes Sam more confident in defeating the monster, which I found really cool.
Watching this brought me back to when I was a teenager going to see horror movies in the late 2010s. It's fresh but also feels familiar. The direction is very intentional, and the movie is easy to settle into. These small touches really enhance the immersion, and play into the theme of one's cultural background.
The design of the Pishach monster is gnarly. Even in the shadows you can see that it's fleshy and porous, dripping like it came out of a hot sewer. It's easy to overlook the design when your villain is an abstract entity, but that attention to detail is just one more nugget for the audience to notice and appreciate.
I would say It Lives Inside definitely needs to be seen in theaters. It's just what we need to kick us off this spooky season!