A gaggle of college friends reunite in a remote setting and play a mysterious party game in the trippy dark comedy thriller, It’s What’s Inside. That’s a clear sign that everything is going to head south fast in writer/director Greg Jardin’s debut feature, which successfully places a unique spin on what’s become a feverishly overused premise. Here, a cozy pre-wedding destination party soon becomes a freak fest after an estranged friend arrives toting a suitcase holding a mysterious device that ultimately will uproot everybody’s lives.
You see, that machine has the ability to induce body swaps. That generates a bevy of WTFs for our spunky gang, so why not play the twisted game, eh? That they do, but the fallout is fierce. From discovering suppressed desires and long-held grudges to uncovering a slew of hidden truths, the revelations become ever so mind-bending. These reactions are fun to watch in and of themselves, but Jardin’s super twisty plot becomes a fantastical puzzle-box to monitormaking the audience stay invested at every turn.
Brittany O’Grady (The White Lotus), James Morosini (I Love My Dad), Gavin Leatherwood (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Nina Bloomgarden (The Resort), Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead), Reina Hardesty (Brockmire), Devon Terrell (Totally Completely Fine), and David Thompson (Panic) comprise the robust ensemble cast in this worthy Netflix outing, which is, at times, exhausting, yet fascinatingly fun.
Game Night Gone Wrong
The young 20-somethings here turn in fine performances all around, making their psychological turmoil thoroughly engrossing. There’s anxious and vulnerable Shelby (O’Grady), who can’t seem to get a rise out of her boyfriend (literally), because Cyrus (Morosini) would rather pleasure himself by watching porn. Trust-fund baby Dennis (Leatherwood) is bro-ing his way through life, but here we learn he shares a curious past with Nikki (Debnam-Carey), a social media influencer. And there’s arty and eclectic Brooke (Hardesty) and Nina (Bloomgarden), whose penchant for Buddhism and introspection make her stand out from the group.
Everybody has shown up for a bachelor’s party of sorts to reminisce with their friend Rueben (Terrell) before his wedding, which is to take place the following day. Fun and games quickly take a turn to the extreme when tech bro Forbes, once ostracized from the group, arrives at the party. He seems to have his own agenda for the night, and is eager to use his Silicon Valley invention.
The first round of random body-swapping conjures up great fun for the group. Nobody knows who anybody else is, but they can guess; if someone’s identity is guessed correctly, they have to admit it and wear a photograph of who they actually are. That photograph, along with different lighting cues and editing techniques, cleverly allow the viewer to know who is in whose body. But what happens if people lie? Anyone could be in anyone else’s body, and the paranoia and suspicion of the characters takes the audience through one marvelously messed-up house of mirrorsforcing the characters, and us, to keep track of everybody and everything being revealed.
A Great Setting Maintains a Film That Gets Too Frantic
Like other films that take place in one setting — from Rope and Locke to 10 Cloverfield Lane — writer/director Greg Jardin makes good use of the house at hand. Both lavish and mysterious, there’s nary a bright LED light in the mini-palace. A massive metal vaginal sculpture welcomes visitors (with the owner of the home being a pretentious feminist artist, leading to some great details), balconies loom overhead, and mysterious rooms and chambers comprise the joint. It’s a great pad for a party, even better for an enigmatic psychological thriller.
Fanning the intrigue of this film is the fact that Greg Jardin’s debut was embraced by Sundance and SXSW. Audiences and critics alike appreciated how the film blended elements of sci-fi with more traditional thriller/dark comedy tropes. It creates a fine narrative, in fact, but the filmmaker’s more existential questions — “Do we truly know ourselves that well?” — tend to be overshadowed by the frenzy at hand and a bevy of plot twists. That’s not objectively a bad thing, but it leads to a creative tug of war of sorts, dividing the film into two sectors — one that’s refreshingly adventurous and one that cannot escape the increasing melodrama it conjures up.
Humor and Thrills Converge, but the Film Needs More of Both
Everything from split screens, dim lighting, colored lighting, and a flurry of quick cuts and blasts of music are so generously used, you wonder if Jardin was just passionate about creating something unique or if he was just downing 5-Hour Energy and Red Bulls. It does the trick, even if it’s very unsubtle, mirroring the growing psychological angst among the game’s participants as they brood on, well, what’s inside — as in, questioning how well they understand themselves and their motivations.
As the terror increases, so does the furor over what the hell is truly happening to these once-close friends. All eyes circle back to Forbes, giving David Thompson, a quirky character actor all around, a chance to steal scenes. He does that initially, but there’s an opportunity lost after the film’s midpoint because the film teeters back and forth between the chills and the comedyand the character itself tends to deflate.
There’s neither huge splashes of humor nor truly shocking jump scare thrills — intrigue, yes, but not genuine thrills — which doesn’t necessarily derail the film, it just keeps it ever so slightly above the midline mark. To his credit, Jardin seizes the moment as he creates a visually stunning fractured fairy tale that ultimately relies on sketchy past events.
The ending may divide audiences, but by this point, Jardin has effectively done his job correctly: he not only made us look, but keep looking at his attempts to create a maniacal masterpiece by stitching threads of dark comedy, sci-fi horror, and psychological thrillers. Look for a sequel. This outing often feels like a good primer for a new streaming series. The game is far from over. It’s What’s Inside streams on Netflix on October 4. Watch it through the link below:
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