This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.When it comes to the best horror movies, specificity of vision is key. Getting right up in the guts of a distinctly terrifying force, be it grounded in history, identity, or trauma, is the way to give a familiar genre story something more. In writer-director Bishal Dutta’s feature debut It Lives Inside, this is something that feels like it is happening about halfway. The particular details of its characters and their lives are compelling while the rest of the story itself is quite lacking. In many ways, it is hard to even consider this a horror film when it often feels like more of a dramatic thriller. There are moments of terror near the beginning, but it gets far too tangled up in a generic narrative that drowns out any sense of vision. Even with some striking visual moments and excellent sound design, it is all in service of regrettably very little.
Bishal Dutta’s horror film It Lives Inside, starring Megan Suri, has a promising premise though generic execution. Read on for our review.