Sam (Megan Suri) is in a tough spot at high school as one of the few Indian students there.  Things get even more difficult when Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), her estranged childhood friend, begins acting really strangely in school, and after an altercation between the two of them, Tamira goes missing.  Wracked with guilt, Sam is determined to help find Tamira and bring her home, but the clues lead to something far more sinister and supernatural than she was prepared to face. 

Bishal Dutta directs It Lives Inside from a script he wrote with Ashish Mehta for release by Neon after its debut at South by Southwest.  The 99-minute horror film feels at home with its modern colleagues in its construction, but thankfully zags from the low-hanging appeal of trauma-based horror and instead opts to dig into some of the mythology and lore of Indian culture. Ultimately, the premise far exceeds the execution, but as a feature debut, It Lives Inside is a solid effort that shows, with some added confidence to be unapologetic in pursuit of his vision, Dutta could helm some truly affecting and upsetting films in the future.   

Suri has a lot of heavy lifting to do in this film as she has to bring new reactions to the cyclical nature of the haunting.  With the exception of the final showdown, her frightening scene partner spends much of the runtime invisible, safe for two beady, glowing eyes from the shadows.  To her credit, she handles the scary scenes rather well even though Dutta gives her little new ground to tread both in the genre at large, but also within the flow of the film.  That there is so little unique about It Lives Inside is not just a mark against the film that makes the runtime feel like it is much longer than it actually is, but it also is a real shame because it is propped up on its Indian identity.   

For much of the film, it reads like a conventional ghost story.  Other than the name of the creature – a Pishach – and the prayer used to summon and consequently seal it away, It Lives Inside is comprised of sequences we have all seen a million times over.  The generous audience will still give Dutta the benefit of the doubt because he does lay a decent framework for his story, it just does not capitalize on what makes it interesting.  The film feels like it is using identity, specifically not fitting into the white, suburban, upper-middle-class high school as the source of the horror, but the actual demon feels very redundant in an already bloated genre of modern social horror.  On one hand, who are we to really make comments on one’s experience, but it feels like Dutta was still filtering his story so that it would be accepted by an Anglo-Saxon audience instead of doubling down and really delving into the lore.  At a certain point, all of our lore shares a lot in common because we are all human with the same core fears, and though It Lives Inside does rely on its unique identity to overcome the Pishach and Dutta also opts for subtitled sequences at home, the film feels like it was a plug-and-play ghost story with little flare to call its own. 

While on a narrative level, the film leaves us wanting more, the production value in other aspects of the film is quite satisfying.  The creature, when finally revealed, is quite gnarly.  Twisted skin covers its lanky body giving it a slimy, almost scaly appearance.  It betrays the illustrations of it which show it as more of a gaseous, intangible demon, but the sharp claws and dripping teeth are a sight to behold when it finally does step out of the shadows.  Wesley Hughes provides the film with its score, incorporating some traditional sounds with all the tropes of a thumping, pulsating horror score to help rachet up the tension of the scene.  The Pishach is a ferocious foe, but It Lives Inside has surprisingly little gore and most of its violence is seen in split second shots allowing much of the torture to play out in our imagination.  The same is also true for Sam who is haunted by a reoccurring dream throughout the film that is washed out in red light that seems to be hinting back at the previous victims of the Pishach while also giving her subconscious hints about where it is hiding Tamira and how to defeat it.  It is a little frustrating that an ancient demon seems so tied to three high schoolers in 2023, but as far as scares go, these sequences are all well-composed even if they do feel a little uninspired and under-constructed.  

It Lives Inside is a film with a lot of potential that never quite reaches the heights it aspires to.  The characters travel in circles and the world they inhabit is so strangely conceived.  While horror movies often rely on poor decision making on behalf of the characters, It Lives Inside has Sam and everyone in her orbit practice such strange logic that it is impossible not to question.  It is a low form of analysis to ask simply why did she not go to the police, or turn in Tamira’s journal, but even if her teenage stubbornness and the guilt of having a fight before her friend disappeared kept her from the authorities, that no one in her network forced to report what she knows becomes an unavoidable and glaring convenience, and convenience has no place in a good story.  This lack of logic is further perpetrated by Joyce (Betty Gabriel), one of Sam’s teachers, who shares a strangely personal relationship with the student opting to call and text the girl with alarming consistency.  It is a culmination of these little details that just feel off and a lack of punch that really drags It Lives Inside down and holds it back from being a very pointed entry into the canon of modern horror.