"Inside: A Chinese Horror Story" happened to come to my attention by sheer random luck. I had never heard about the movie, nor was I familiar with what it was about. Being an Asian horror movie was essentially also all that was needed for me to pick it up and sit down to watch it.
At 35 minutes into the movie I was ready to give up, because "Inside: A Chinese Horror Story" is unfathomably slow paced and made very little sense storywise so far. And at this point there still hadn't been anything even remotely scary to see on the screen. However, I stuck with the movie, because it might get better as it progressed.
The acting in the movie was good, and it was nice to see a cast ensemble of new faces and names. And I will say that people were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters. However, some of the characters were mundane and lacking personalities, and you never really got too acquainted with most of them to actually have any kind of relation to them. That was a shame, because it made many of the characters seem like insignificant and just as passers-by.
It is like an anthology of different stories, but none of them are scary, and they make very little sense in the greater picture. Individually, then the stories are adequate, but tied together, it just didn't really work out in a satisfying manner.
When I hit the one hour marker, I just gave up, because the movie had not taken a turn for the better. It just continued to trot on in the same monotone pace and still making very little sense.
I will say that the camera-work and the cinematography in the movie was quite good, and it was definitely the work of professional people. It was beautifully shot and equally beautifully edited.
So "Inside: A Chinese Horror Story" was indeed a swing and a miss from director Lili Bai. I have no intention of returning to finish this movie, because it just failed to captivate and interest me. As such, then I am settling on a generous 4 out of 10 stars for this movie.
If you enjoy Asian horror movies, then there are far better and more entertaining movies available. And I must actually say that "Inside: A Chinese Horror Story" was anything but scary, so it didn't really fall into this category to be honest.
