A guaranteed strategy to stay awake through your third film of the day, is to make sure it’s a horror.

Bishal Dutta’s It Lives Inside works as an in your face scary rollercoaster ride as well as a tasty metaphor for the teenage immigrant experience.

Teen Samidha (Megan Suri) – Sam to her white friends – is trying very hard to not stand out in her middle American school. This includes leaving behind her former best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) who is just not cool enough, and seemingly a bit too Indian. Sam‘s mother Poorna (Neeru Bajwa) exhorts her to speak Hindi and help her prepare for Puja, but she wants to play sport and flirt with a pretty boy Russ (Gage Marsh).

The wrinkle is the realisation that something is wrong with Tamira. She’s dressed in black, clutching a weird black mason jar and haunting the periphery of Sam’s friendship group. Even kindly teacher Joyce (Betty Gabriel) tries to get Sam to help her. It’s only when Sam smashes Tamira’s jar – she really is an awful friend – and a demon, a Pishach, is released that things get real.

Genuine scares ensue as the demon becomes more and more real for Sam and the people around her. It’s a tidy metaphor for both teenage depression and the difficulties of fitting in as an immigrant. No one can see the demon but they sure can feel its effects. The Pishach feeds on negativity and loneliness, and we can see this run through Samidha’s family. They are all dislocated from culture and have different ways of coping.

It was a really fun ride with just the right amount of jump scares and nerve wracking tension. The denouement is an interesting one, adding a layer that goes beyond the usual genre resolution.

Director: Bishal Dutta
Origin: USA (2023)
Language: English, Hindi with English subtitles
Genre: Horror

---

Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.