It Lives Inside

While I appreciate the themes posed in the first half about assimilation and the struggles of connecting with a culture you're both from but not connected to at all, It Lives Inside decides to squander this deep and interesting angle in favour of the most cookie cutter horror tropes and scares imaginable. Unable to fully throw its punches due to a very restrictive PG-13 rating, It Lives Inside drops back to a level of mediocrity which is almost insulting given the promise it sets out the gate. I think they really could have had something special here, a monster from a seldom represented culture in the horror space, with an underlying message about the pressures of first generation immigrants in their respective new homeland, attempting to both adhere to the expectations of the place they're growing up, while also trying to connect with the culture and customs of their parents. A shame really, sometimes knowing that something could have been great is worse than it just being bad, and I truly think It Lives Inside could have been special.

Evidently continuing my trend of religious horror this week, this new movie is fascinating in that it’s religious horror that is, for once, NOT based on Catholicism. I don’t want to say too much, because it does a nice job of slowly revealing the basis for what’s going on to those unfamiliar with Hinduism, but it all also circulates around a strong theme of assimilation versus cultural identity.