Review: THEY’RE INSIDE (2019)
They’re Inside is the first feature film from director John-Paul Panelli and his frequent co-writer Schuyler Brumley. It’s also a found footage film, and as frequent readers know, that is far from my favourite flavour of horror. However, recent films such as The Fear Footage and Spirits In The Dark have been slowly winning me over. Balancing that optimism out though was the fact the last found footage film I’d seen from Epic/Dread, #Screamers was one of the worst of its kind.
We actually start out with a prologue showing an oddly masked Man ( Matthew Peschio) and Woman (Alex Rinehart, Art Of The Dead) killing somebody as he records a video. This had me wondering just where They’re Inside was going. Most films of this kind don’t have prologues for obvious reasons.
The main plot involves Robin (Karli Hall), and her sister, Cody (Amanda Kathleen Ward) who, along with a couple of friends are shooting a film. It’s something of a passion project. However, as the weekend goes on tempers flair and family secrets come to light. Even worse, the figures from the prologue are back, and it seems they’re filming something dear to their own hearts.
What at first looked like a found-footage version of The Strangers very quickly goes somewhere a lot more interesting. As I noted before the opening hints that this won’t be standard found footage fare. And as They’re Inside progresses it’s obvious we’re dealing with something other than just found footage. It obviously has been assembled into a narrative, but by who, and why?
The answers to those questions aren’t what you would expect. The plot seems straightforward enough at first, almost cliched. However, They’re Inside becomes more and more bizarre as its story unfolds. I certainly wasn’t expecting how it all played out. And I’m not going to spoil it either, you want to go into this knowing as little as possible.
For a film shot in eleven days, They’re Inside looks quite polished. The plot involves shooting a film, So there’s no reason for much of it to look like it was shot by amateurs with a cheap video camera. There’s very little shaky-cam footage as well. Most of the film’s other footage comes from security cameras, so you don’t have to worry about getting a headache.
Epic Pictures will release They’re Inside via its Dread label on VOD and BLU-RAY on July 16th.