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1997(1st) ~ 2024(28th)
World Fantastic Cinema
Phedon PAPAMICHAEL
USA2008 90 min Digibeta C Asian Premiere
This low-budge film with good execution and intensity approaches the subject with a familiar yet serious perspective and tightly-knit plot, employing many of the conventional horror fare elements, like supernatural evil forces, dopplegangers, a white suburban town with religious overtones, and suicide spree and romance of teenagers. The opening scene where a young man kills himself implies the impending series of suicide are the consequences of a deadly curse. Despite the rising body count, bloodbath and grotesque apparition driving the audience to the edge of horror, From Within is basically said, with its core lying in ambiguity and contradiction ¡ª between suicide and homicide, between good and evil. All the deaths incurred by possessed dopplegangers can be viewed as the victims" own doing (think M. Night SHYAMALAN"s The Happening) because the deeply religious community itself is responsible for the death of Aidan"s mother, setting off a chain of curses. Treated as the son of a witch, Aidan has to believe in the evil to put an end to the curse, though he himself does not buy into the supernatural. He also has to sacrifice his life to save others." The obsession to destroy the evil ghost of Dylan, the pastor"s son, begets yet another perpetual evil. As the last scene suggests, all the evil has perhaps come from within? Scary. Intriguing. Smart. Brilliant handling of a plot unfolding in a confined space! (CHO Hye Young)