A cluster of familiar horror archetypes get an atmospheric refresh in Bishal Dutta’s It Lives Inside (2023). The film works on a slow burn; so slow, in fact, that impatient viewers may tire of it before it pays its strongest dividends. For this horror fan, this is an excellent revision of some tried-and-tested elements – with more than its usual share of strong women among the cast.

Samidha (Megan Suri) is an Indian immigrant studying in an American high school. While she tries her best to integrate with her white schoolmates, she struggles against her mother (Neeru Bajwa) who leans on Hindu traditions and refuses to speak English at home. When a fellow Indian student (Mohana Krishnan) appears terrified and then disappears, Samidha is slowly drawn towards something dangerous, invisible, and seemingly supernatural.

The crass elevator pitch of It Lives Inside is essentially “The Ring meets It Follows with an Indian twist”. It is broadly an accurate enough description, but it does undersell just how much Bishal Dutta’s screenplay and direction get some fresh mileage out of those films’ elements. His influences clearly do not stop at those two works either: there is a clear debt owed to Clive Barker here – particularly his film Hellraiser – and Dutta’s overall approach shows off a filmmaker who is not just talented but deeply cine-literate as well. He works those elements of creeping horror, invisible demons, and slowly developing dread extremely well, but he simultaneously works in an Indian-American identity just as effectively. All good horror tends to have a social subtext. This time around the immigrant experience, cultural traditions, and the loneliness of being different to one’s peers all get a smart, evocative application.

Megan Suri is a great lead, and is backed up by a solid screenplay that ensure she is more than a generic genre stereotype. Likewise Neeru Bajwa does a great job of characterising her own role’s implicit fears of racism and simultaneous prejudice. The Hindu cultural detail feels well-developed and authentic, and goes such a long way from marking It Lives Inside out from its contemporaries. There are plenty of the movies that are generally like it, but none that are exactly like it. Its textual richness is its greatest asset. Betty Gabriel also deserves notice for her role as high school teacher Joyce. It is a stock role, but she gives it great depth. This is a film with numerous strong female roles, and passes the famed ‘Bechdel test’ without difficulty.

Dutta’s film is perhaps at its most surprising during the climax, which eschews the current preference for computer-generated effects in favour of something more physical – and visceral. I almost always prefer physical effects to digital ones; It Lives Inside is a palpable example why.

This film is similar enough to other works to feel comfortable and satisfying, but with enough flair and originality to make its own mark on the genre. I enjoyed it a great deal.

It Lives Inside was released to DVD and bluray by Madman Entertainment back in December 2023.