SXSW-winner horror and social drama “It Lives Inside” is coming out soon

One of the surprises of the last SXSW festival was the horror and drama thriller It Lives Inside (2023), a film that shares some plot ideas with Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell (2009) and that has been described as a powerful metaphor for adolescent depression in the key of supernatural horror.

The movie centers on Sam, an Indian-American teen who lives in an idyllic suburb with her conservative mother and her assimilated father. Sam’s cultural insecurities grow due to her estranged friend, Tamira, who mysteriously carries around an empty mason jar all the time. In a moment of anger, Sam breaks Tamira’s jar and unleashes an ancient Indian demonic force that kidnaps Tamira. Sam searches for Tamira, following the trail of a young man who performed a deadly ritual, until the demonic entity starts targeting her, murdering her boyfriend and shattering her reality with terrifying visions. Sam must band together with her parents and a sympathetic teacher to save Tamira and put an end to the terror of the demon.

This is the debut feature film of Bishal Dutta, who is also the writer of the screenplay together with Ashish Mehta.

Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Betty Gabriel, Vik Sahay, Gage Marsh, Siddhartha Minhas, and Sangeeta Wylie form the main cast in It Lives Inside (2023).

The movie is produced by Edward H. Hamm Jr., Sean McKittrick, and Raymond Mansfield via their banner QC Entertainment, who are also the producers of Get Out (2017), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Antebellum (2020), three of the recent titles that merge the genre of horror with a strong social and racial background. Brightlight Pictures and Neon are also producing.

It Lives Inside (2023) had its premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in the Midnighters section where it won the Audience Award for Best Film. Commercial release dates are still yet to be announced but it is expected soon in 2023.

Watch the official trailer for It Lives Inside (2023).