If we’ve learned anything from horror movies over the last few years it’s that playing games should be limited to beer pong and spin the bottle. Everything else will turn out a disaster. Such is the case in It’s What’s Inside, a genre-bending party thriller that made a splash at Sundance earlier this year. Directed by Greg Jardin and exec-produced by Colman Domingo, the film features a cast of fast-rising young stars, but good luck keeping track of what any of them are doing.
Starring Brittany O’Grady, Alycia Debnam-Carey, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood, Nina Bloomgarden, Reina Hardesty, Devon Terrell, and David Thompson, It’s What’s Inside is part thriller, part slasher horror, part dark comedy, and part sci-fi. It centers on a group of friends throwing a pre-wedding bash, only for things to go haywire when a friend brings an experimental body-swapping device, causing old grudges and secrets to rise to the surface in truly effed-up ways. It becomes nearly impossible to tell who is doing what and what is truly happening, but that is part of the fun.
I had a blast with It’s What’s Inside at Sundance, calling it a “likely cult classic”. I also expected that a distributor such as A24 would snag it immediately, but instead the film went to Netflix which will release it exclusively on October 4th. If they were smart they’d have a theatrical component, too.
SYNOPSIS: A group of friends gather for a pre-wedding party that descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend arrives with a mysterious game that awakens long-hidden secrets, desires, and grudges.