Metacritic reviews

It's What's Inside is one of the funniest, most clever, and narratively ambitious movies I've seen in a long while.

Cares far less about scares than thrills, and it generates plenty of giddy ones as it mires its characters in a predicament of head-spinning proportions.

There are few things better than when a good idea blossoms into a great movie. It’s What’s Inside, written and directed by Greg Jardin, achieves this rare feat.

As ambitious or complicated as the script may get, the film is the ultimate crowd-pleaser, entertaining the idea of horror tropes but structuring the story with clever twists and thrills that defy the genre.

It’s a loud, colorful, frantic and pitch black horror comedy about identity that mercilessly critiques modern anxiety about desirability and success.

The camera, the cuts, the needle drops, and story twists all contribute to the feeling of a machine that’s spinning faster and faster until finally it careens right out of control.

The results are coldly diverting, with the plot continually ratcheting itself into higher degrees of panic and surprise, though potential for a darker, harder psychological payoff is missed — largely because these characters are so thin.

This supposed breakout strains to be edgy while remaining painfully inert. It initially makes for a sporadically fun game to play before revealing how little it has on its mind.

There’s a cracking elevator pitch of an idea here (one wonders if inevitable sequels will be able to squeeze more juice from it) but Jardin’s cocky, in-your-face excess coupled with his lack of follow-through makes this an unwinnable game.

All the nervy cutting, the pirouetting pans and off-kilter angles, the dexterous split-screen and the bombardment of eclectic music cues — many of them dropped in with archly emphatic force — can only distract from the lack of depth for so long.