Rent It Lives Inside on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Bishal Dutta, Bishal Dutta and Ashish Mehta (story by)
Directed by: Bishal Dutta
Starring: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Betty Gabriel
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
An Indian-American teenager struggling with her cultural identity has a falling out with her former best friend and unwittingly releases a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness.
Verdict
This is Sam rejecting her family traditions, and it has dire
consequences in the form of a monster. This has a bit of a twist ending, but everything about the horror aspects feel so typical. I like the idea more than i like the result. The Indian tradition as the basis for the plot works great, but this doesn't do anything unique with it after or try to teach me about the culture. This wants to be social commentary. It starts the conversation but doesn't complete it. The rest of the movie is so ordinary that it doesn't matter.
Skip it.
Review
This opens with the horror movie standby of an unintelligible scene of horror and destruction. Then we see a disheveled student holding a jar full of dirt. It looks a lot like the jar in the opening sequence.
That student is Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), and she used to be friends with protagonist Sam (Megan Suri) and but they've drifted apart in high school. Tamira approaches Sam because of this jar. We don't know where Tamira found it, but she states it was calling her name. She tells Sam the stories they believed growing up were real. With the genre, there has to be some kind of demon in that jar.
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| Megan Suri plays Sam |
Sam distances herself from Indian traditions. While her mom insists she pay respect to tradition, her father is less strict. I get what this movie is trying to do. By ignoring her heritage, Sam has unleashed a monster. This is also a story about acceptance. Sam distanced herself from Indian traditions to better fit in at school.
Whatever was in the jar starts following Sam. It seems like this might be a pass it on type thing. We've seen that in The Ring and It Follows. I don't know how Tamira found the jar. She also has some kid's journal full of symbols. I guess that's what we saw in the first scene. With all of that, we know where this is going. There's no reason to delay, and this takes too long to get started. I want to know what happens once the monster is unleashed.
I appreciate Sam is trying to balance her culture and fitting in. We've all had that period in high school where we try to distance ourselves from our parents and traditions to be cool in school. There's a way to do it without it feeling like too much exposition, but I want Sam to talk to her parents about this demon and why they sacrifice. The movie sets it up as a tradition that Sam doesn't believe or adhere. The twist is it's real. I want a clear link between the traditions, sacrifice, and why they do it. This movie needs something more.
We see plenty of Sam's nightmares, but they would be more interesting if they were waking dreams. There are too many nightmare sequences and they seem to exist just because this is a horror movie. They need to be clues or push the plot forward.
Finally Sam talks to her mom about this demon and they start a ceremony to stop it. It's just too typical. How does this demon choose victims? Is it just people close to Sam? The motive is unclear, and this is just a typical horror movie thrill ride. This had an opportunity to teach me more about traditions in a culture with which I'm unfamiliar and it didn't. The movie needed more, and that would have helped.
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