The Evil Inside aka Dead Inside (2011)Before we get this review about a truly ghastly movie started... thank you all so much for letting me see 50,000 readers when I started this review this afternoon! I'd hoped to get there maybe by the end of the year just to find that it is here and passed... in fact, and I hope I'm not being too greedy here, it is possible that we'll see 52,000 by the end of the year. That is oh so sweet guys - this blog has been therapeutic as well as a lot of fun and having you guys support it means so much to me. Okay, enough mush.
As you know I've been enjoying myself with a MST3K marathon chock full of movies so awful you wonder if the writer was just slapping stuff together and never expected it to sell, or if the ones making the movie just figured people would watch anything so why not make a buck or two? Trouble is, those were movies from the 50's to the 80's - and apparently that opinion of the average movie goer hasn't risen that much from what I'm seeing in way too many of these newer movies.First, this is not to be confused with THE Dead Inside made the same year. That one might be good (I doubt that) so I'll check it out. But meanwhile we're stuck with this. We start with a young girl being taunted by her classmates. She's on the ground being kicked while they chant horrible things at her. It startles her awake - apparently it's a frequent nightmare. She is now a 20-something disturbed woman, but still living with her parents in a new place and a new town - apparently where she lived as a child. The mother gets a phone call and in obvious distress she and her husband arrange to fly out of town.
Now apparently because it happens everywhere never, the mother had arranged for a sleepover (okay, my BS meter is off the charts already). Sarah's childhood friend (Which one? The one kicking her or the one calling her names?) Lucy decides to invite along several others to make a party out of it. Uh huh. So we have a bunch of unlikable, racially diverse, picture perfect (hint, hint) 20 somethings in this big house with Lucy, who is NOT pleased to see any of them.
So we have our six together - 3 are in some kind of romantic tangle, the others aren't exactly great friends either, and none of them except for Lucy know Sarah at all. They're about to and they aren't going to like it. The party starts as all do nowhere ever with six people drinking and talking trash about each other in this huge house.The first thing Sarah does is start creeping them out and it doesn't take much. She points to each one of them, and tells them they're going to die tonight and how. Oh, that IS a party pleaser. They should have just pulled out a Ouija board if that kind of garbage is going down. After they basically tell her she's a nutburger, she starts hearing voices and seeing ghostly apparitions. And my duh meter as well as my BS meter now need new batteries.
So now everybody hates Sarah but strangely no one leaves the party. Massive duh and an incredible scale. I was expecting oh-so-much more from the guy who directed Necromentia (which was one of the weirdest movies I've seen and I still don't completely understand what went on even though I've watched it three times - I'll try it again and attempt to explain it) but here Pearry Teo (the first Singaporean movie director to make a Hollywood film) is just phoning in yet another teenage slasher film while trying to incorporate that paranormal aspect that everyone is sick to death of.
Sarah is not likable nor did I feel sorry for her in the least. She should never have had anyone over in the first place, nor allowed a party in the second place, but all that becomes quite a moot point in the end which was the most infuriating of all. Let me break it down:
She points to each person and tells them how they are going to die. That's always a party pleaser. In the course of the movie, each character dies just how Sarah predicts - but not because of a supernatural force. They die because they are privileged, rotten 20 somethings who don't even like each other much less Sarah. Oh and the house won't let them out. Let me say that again. The. house. doors. won't. open. Apparently no one thinks to try a window or just bust out or something.
Let's cut to the end of this shall we? If you want to watch this movie, this would be the place to stop reading. After everyone is dead, Sarah walks through the house only to find that although the blood and weapons (don't ask) are still there, the bodies are gone. And she has blood on her hands. Just when you're about to say 'Okay, she's a psycho so....' they do the most horrible, typical horror movie trick on you. They wake her up.
Yup, it's been a dream and you've been punk'd (I believe the expression goes). Sarah is in a hospital. The nurses surrounding her are the pictures and the shadowy figures she'd seen throughout the movie. She's also strapped to the bed. For some reason her parents are waiting in the hall - apparently so they can say their lines because there's no other earthly reason for them to be there.
They tell her every time she wakes up they have to explain this over and over. She's been a mess her whole life and because kids are cruel (hence the opening scene of her being kicked by a bunch of 'em) they moved back to their hometown for a fresh start. So up to them moving and having to leave town in a rush (her aunt had just tried to commit suicide so this was not the ideal family) everything is as seen. But Lucy was not her friend. She was more of a babysitter. The parents said they have no idea what happened but now Sarah does.
After being nice to Sarah and taking pictures of her with her phone (Look how pretty you are!) Sarah finds out that Lucy not only is raiding the drug cabinet, she's been sending out pictures of Sarah to all her friends, basically making fun of the nutcase. Sarah goes nuts (Isn't that an oxymoron?). She pushes Lucy down the stairs, killing her.
The parents continue explaining that they never really left - they found out her aunt had died and so had just gone home. There they found Lucy dead. And (this part I REALLY didn't understand - she had had visions of it during the movie) Sarah had buried herself in the mud. How does one do that exactly? I mean really, I want to know.
That was five years ago. And the others? They don't exist. The parents explain that they have to tell her that every time she wakes up (and apparently they always know exactly when that is - duh). At this point Sarah (Hannah Ward was apparently going for an Oscar here) begins to scream and thrash about - the parents leave, saying they just can't go through this anymore.
So who were all the others? Pictures of models in a magazine that Lucy had brought. Duh duh duh DUH!!!!
So who were all the others? Pictures of models in a magazine that Lucy had brought. Duh duh duh DUH!!!!
