Netflix’s brutal body swap thriller

If there’s one thing movies have taught us, it’s that you should never be alone in the house. Heck, even with other people. You’ll just get chased, or you’ll get beaten up, or at the very least your house will be an absolute mess in the morning and you’ll have to tell your parents what really happened. So get out there, dammit! You’re more likely to be in a romantic comedy if you’re not stuck in a remote mansion on a dark and dreary night, looking sideways at your old college friends who secretly hate you or want you dead.

On the other hand, if you’re going to stay inside, you might as well watch Greg Jardin’s compellingly mean-spirited “It’s What’s Inside,” which has the familiar setup – surely we’re alone in this house and nothing bad can happen to us – and adds a millennial sci-fi thriller twist. By the time the bodies start piling up, the question is no longer “who knows,” but “who is really in my body and what are they doing with it?”

“It’s What’s Inside” is set at a party the night before Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) wedding, when all of his most awful friends converge on his mother’s fabulous estate. She was a famous artist, you see, which is why the building is filled with ridiculous-looking crystal rooms and giant statues of vaginas. Of course, that can’t possibly be an excuse to make the production of a low-budget film set almost entirely in one house look more interesting than it would otherwise be. Certainly.

Regardless, Reuben’s meeting is well attended. There’s party boy Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), online influencer Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), artsy Brooke (Reina Hardesty), spiritual Maya (Nina Bloomgarden) and the deeply insecure couple Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini). . Shelby and Cyrus have been together for years, but he is more interested in pornography than touching her. a lot of more interested in explaining why he isn’t ready for marriage than breaking up.

The festivities kick into a strange high gear when Reuben reveals that he has also invited Forbes (David W. Thompson), who was expelled from their university after a scandal involving Reuben, Dennis and Forbes’ underage sister. It’s kind of cool. He is now a technology millionaire and he is completely willing to let bygones be bygones. He even brought his latest invention to the party: a machine with the power to swap bodies. That is something that exists now.

Obviously a machine like this has incredible implications and could potentially change the world, but these are millennials we’re talking about, so they’re going to use it for party games. Everyone switches bodies with a random person, and just like a game of “Mafia” or “Werewolf,” everyone has to figure out who is really who. These people are genuinely surprised at their predicament for at least a few minutes, but they quickly get over the novelty. There are certainly opportunities they would all like to explore; for example, someone with a peanut allergy can finally indulge in Reese’s Pieces. But no, party games are what we do with this. And because some people are total a-holes, party games are about to spell their literal death.

Like Halina Reijn’s brilliantly bitter ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’, Jardin’s film takes a classic old, dark house setup and reinvents it by putting a younger generation at its center. And like “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” Jardin’s film is mean-spirited and judgmental. There was a time when critics complained that 1980s slasher films were cruel to Gen to deserve their horrible fate. “It’s What’s Inside” argues that no, the majority of these characters deserve and will get total oblivion. The soundtrack even picks up Bruno Nicolai’s theme from 1972 giallo “The Red Queen Kills Seven Times,” as if to say “yes,” this movie is going to be hard. Buckle up.

And while the body count isn’t exactly zero, “It’s What’s Inside” isn’t a bloodbath either. It’s not a story about murder, it’s a story about excuses and the way we can maneuver ourselves in and out of trouble without accepting any responsibility for what we did or why we did it. Most of Jardin’s film follows the perspective of Cyrus, who isn’t a bad person because he’s no longer in love with his girlfriend — he’s a bad person because he’s too cowardly to admit it, and instead he tries to kill Shelby to convince them that their problems have all been solved. her fault. While we may sympathize with his bizarre situation as a victim of body-swapping crime, we also want to see his progress. We are invited – even encouraged – to oppose the person we know most about. “It’s What’s Inside” understands the concept of sympathy, but with these types of people the film advises against it.

Jardin’s clever screenplay takes a great sci-fi gimmick, clearly defines the rules by which it works, and then (mostly) follows those rules. Audiences can easily understand the film’s many complexities, in part because there is a photographic trick where various light filters reveal who is really who. It’s a bit contrived and draws attention to the film’s artifice, but unless you can think of a better way to keep track of the body-swapping identities of a large cast, it’s hard to criticize. Jardin shoved himself into a narrative corner and came up with a respectable exit strategy. Meanwhile, cinematographer Kevin Fletcher uses every excuse he has to turn this film into a bit of a phantasmagoria (there’s the giallo influence again).

It’s not all wine and roses. “It’s What’s Inside” has a manic energy that makes the film difficult to embrace or even understand in the first act, as Jardin tries to introduce all the characters and quickly loses sight of who’s who, why it matters and what their connections are. Ironically, they only become clearly defined when the film changes the identities of these characters, which says a lot about this cast’s ability to replicate each other’s performances and mannerisms. There’s also a twist that ultimately contradicts the information the audience was explicitly given. It’s the only time Jardin’s script breaks the rules, and he barely gets away with it. But he does escape.

“It’s What’s Inside” has some quirks that don’t quite work, but the details hold up remarkably well and the broad sweep is addictively acidic. This is a smart, compelling science fiction thriller with an intriguing approach, a clear point of view and questions that appeal to the imagination. It’s easy to love a mean-spirited movie like “It’s What’s Inside,” even if you don’t always like what’s inside.

“It’s What’s Inside” is now streaming on Netflix.