Babies. Pregnant bellies. Now that I’m married, I get asked “when’s the baby?” “Thinking of kids?” I’m pretty sure all married couples get asked these post wedding questions. But tonight, Yoko and I saw the film that ensured that we didn’t want to pursue the reproductive Olympics for a while.

The Weinstein Company has a new French Horror film called INSIDE. It was first being discussed around the time of Cannes – then when it got scheduled for the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight program… well, you read Copernicus’ review… right? Right.

INSIDE is an intruder film. A home invasion flick. And it’s BRUTAL. Last year’s INSIDE by Jeff Mahler was intense in a psychological manner, this French INSIDE – oh, the psyche gets plenty beat up, but the French are just many times more fucked in the head than the TEEN WOLF lovin’ Mahler.

First – in the realm of the home invasion pic… it is important to have victims that are particularly bad at defending themselves… either in pacifist ways, elderly ways, fear of family being hurt ways… or in this film, a single obscenely pregnant hot mommy I’d like to boink.

How pregnant? Well, she’s scheduled for early the next morning to go to the hospital and have the birth induced. Yeah, she’s ripe for poppin’.

The movie has a woman home invader, which is a nice shift – don’t really see that too often. And this doesn’t suck like THE HAND THAT ROCKED THE CRADLE. No, this is off the hook awesome. It played to a packed small house at midnight on a Tuesday – and right at 1:25am through 1:30am… pretty much the entire house was SCREAMING, SQUIRMING and SQUEALING in one united choir of sympathy, horror and outrage. When this film jumps the rails… everyone will feel the impact. It is seriously fucked up.

Ok. I can hear ya. “Why would I want to submit to this?” If that question is even on your mind… you probably couldn’t handle the movie. I’ll be truthful – about 40 minutes in, my wife decided to leave – and it hadn’t even gotten to the scary shit yet. Why? Well, one she was tired, two – I think she got the sense that this film was going to be intense in a manner that she wasn’t really wanting to experience.

This film does for women, what castration films do for men. That’s right… violate the sanctity of your being. This film is a traumatically entertaining experience. And, it’s French – so it’s all sorts of fucked up.

So.. How are the Weinstein’s going to handle this film? I’ll be truthful, I haven’t a clue. First, I can’t imagine the film getting past the MPAA without SERIOUS EDITING. I approve – but my threshold of gore enjoyment knows no bounds. I saw many on my row hiding their eyes and while I never hid from the film… I was squirming and trying to hold onto my skullcap, cuz the film was seriously blowing my mind.

Also – I have to say – I love FRENCH BLOOD in cinema. The color blood is just awesome. It’s such a beautifully traumatic red. The short of red that Kubrick got for THE SHINING. That we last saw with HAUTE TENSION. Here – the crimson is beautiful… the arterial sprays, the head explosions, the sounds, the gurgles, the film just does not let up.

Is it over the top?

Ya know, it’s so far over the top, it’s fucking Sputnik. That sort of out there that causes people to build bomb shelters and freak out. This film – if… somehow… it were to get released and be seen by a massive audience… would cause outrage in certain circles, it would go unscreened in certain towns, simply because the Theater owners were so freaked out.

That said – I can’t recommend it enough for those of you that love this sort of film. The theater laughed to break tension, screamed, hollered and howled at the movie. It was… a perfect midnight experience. And right now, I think I could totally handle what I hope will one day be a normal birth experience. If not, I’m gonna totally ASH up, because birthing babies can be way fucking intense… especially with some French wannabe mommy wench wanting your kid. Yeesh!