Desperate to fit in at school, Sam rejects her East Indian culture and family to be like everyone else. However, when a mythological demonic spirit latches onto her former best friend, she must come to terms with her heritage to defeat it.
I absolutely love seeing Indie horror films get a wide release, we have come a long way from having almost nonexistent releases, to having to wait 2 or 3 weeks before your theater gets them (yes I'm aware these sort of releases still do happen but they are not as bad as they were in the 2010s) to wide releases. Having that said It Lives Inside is sadly not a very good movie and it's quite frustrating.
It Lives Inside does a undeniably great job when it comes to Hindu representation something we don't often see in American horror films and Megan Suri who plays the leading role does a very solid job with her performance. Neeru Bajwa is pretty solid here as well, the mother and daughter dynamic between Bajwa and Suri is genuinely interesting when the movie focuses on it.
Unfortunately a majority of what the movie focuses on is a very bland horror urban legend story that doesn't do anything new, if you have seen The Boogeyman which came out earlier this year. You are going to notice a lot of similarities between these two movies, I didn't love The Boogeyman but at the very least it had the performances and atmosphere to push it to the finish line and make it a satisfying watch.
It Lives Inside has some decent performances but the atmosphere is completely missing, it's a total mess that tries to throw in that odd PG-13 horror movie humor while making the story quite serious. It's such an odd choice and I'm not entirely sure what was trying to be said here either.
What hurts It Lives Inside even more is the third act that went on for way too long, there were so many opportunities to tie the bow on the movie but it kept going adding way too much on to the point where the movie becomes unrecognizable from when it first started. It's disappointing to see because there are some genuinely interesting ideas and I do like the perspective the movie is trying to go for, it's just sadly not taken very far and ends up being a very below average PG-13 horror movie with a lot of the usual cliches.
It Lives Inside is available in Theaters.
4/10 D+
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