It Lives Inside: Film Review
Megan Suri popped up on my radar thanks to Never Have I Ever and she shows off a completely different side to herself in the horror It Lives Inside.
Suri plays an Indian-American teenager named Samidha, or Sam for short, who is struggling with her cultural identity. One day, her former best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) approaches her and claims there is an evil spirit trapped inside her jar and it’s getting stronger. Naturally, Sam doesn’t believe her and smashes the jar, unleashing the demon once again.
This is a storyline we have seen time and time again but it feels fresh thanks to its incorporation of Hindu folklore. Samidha is terrorised by the Pishach, a mythology creature believed to feed on negative human emotions – anger, loneliness, depression, etc – and isolate their target from their friends before eventually killing them.
It’s great to see so much Indian representation within an American horror movie. In addition to the Pishach, we observe the Durga Puja festivity, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, and Hindi is spoken. Plus, there is the central conflict between Sam and her mum Poorna (Neeru Bajwa) about Sam’s rejection of her heritage and embrace of American culture. This is the heart of the film and it pays off nicely at the end.
There are a couple of jump scares and creepy moments and the creature is horrifying up-close in all its glory. But the movie is let down by its CGI budget (or lack thereof) because some of the kills and demon appearances would have been more terrifying had they looked more realistic. Suri, Bajwa and Krishnan worked hard to really sell the horror but it just wasn’t scary enough.
While Bishal Dutta‘s movie commendably uses horror to explore the immigrant experience, the story is too familiar and conventional to be particularly memorable.
In selected cinemas from Friday 20th October