From Within

I am almost disappointed when I see a good horror movie, this is due to the fact that I know that very few will measure up. From Within was a movie that left me craving more movies like this. Grouped in with After Dark’s Horrorfest III, I must say that I am impressed. The only movie I can compare it to would be The Abandoned which was a part of the first Horrorfest.

From Within takes place in a small, deeply religious town in Maryland. And opens with a teenage couple sitting together at dawn. The two are your typical angst ridden teens rebelling against the hypocrisies of religion and already my best friends. They speak too low for me to fully understand, but when the boy pulls out a gun and then proceeds to blow off his head in front of his girlfriend, I was already hooked. As the credits play we are introduced to a collage of the town as it wakes, your typical small town with its collection of small town minds.

Lindsay, our protagonist is trying on new church dresses with her chain smoking step mother as the blood covered girlfriend comes barreling down the street and into the clothing store. Babbling about someone chasing her she flips out and jams a pair of scissors into her neck. Her father runs to her side and we very subtly see him flinch as something moves from his daughter into him.

The rash of suicides continue like a chain reaction, from one person to another, and the blame for the curse goes directly to the brother of the first suicide victim. A fellow outcast who’s mother was murdered in a fire caused by an angry town mob when they suspected her for the death of one of their own.

Seeing the change in the community and her church, Lindsay befriends Aiden, the first victims brother in hopes of discovering the cause of the curse and how to end it. This need to reverse the curse is heightened when Lindsay herself is afflicted and she and Aiden rush to find the counter curse.

It was a very well done psychological horror where the curse is represented as visions of ourselves. It is about us versus us. Another aspect that drew me in was the portrayal of the church through the whole affair. Support quickly turned to irrational fear and hatred which then became a mob seeking holy revenge behind the barrel of a shot gun. It could be my dislike for organized religion, or for a good horror that doesn’t use a chainsaw to illicit a fear reaction from the audience. From Within was well paced and well acted that I recommend to anyone who is looking to use a little more of their grey matter during a typical horror flick.