50
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70Los Angeles TimesJen YamatoLos Angeles TimesJen YamatoProving her own star quality, a committed Suri guides Sam through a journey of identity and final-girl heroics that brings satisfying healing to her strained relationship with her mother.
- 67Austin ChronicleJenny NulfAustin ChronicleJenny NulfIt Lives Inside at least isn’t just another mainstream horror weepy about grief – there’s a lot more that it’s playing around with, which is so refreshing in a time where horror is either extremely insane for the purposes of camp or about extremely damaged people who should just go to therapy. It’s nice to see a spooky movie that is having fun with a new box of tools.
- 60VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyThough the results aren’t terribly original or memorable, they do provide a creepy 90-odd minutes.
- 60The GuardianBenjamin LeeThe GuardianBenjamin LeeWhen the first-time director Bishal Dutta does try to add freshness to the familiarity of formula, he manages to carve his film its own place within two overstuffed subgenres, flashes of intrigue as he veers between schlocky curse and even schlockier monster movie.
- 60The New York TimesBrandon YuThe New York TimesBrandon YuIt’s a promising debut from Dutta, who offers a fresh premise that proves a natural fit for the genre.
- 50The Associated PressLindsey BahrThe Associated PressLindsey BahrIt Lives Inside is still a welcome respite from the other long-in-the-tooth horror franchises populating theaters this time of year in that it’s just something new – new faces, new themes, a promising filmmaker to watch – but I wish it would have embraced more of the things that make it unique as opposed to trying to fit in with its genre brethren.
- 49Paste MagazineJacob OllerPaste MagazineJacob OllerIt Lives Inside shows that a generic, uncertain script isn’t improved with a single coat of paint, especially if the ugly original is bleeding through the patchy, translucent renovation.
- 42IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichA litany of jolt-focused dream sequences do little to escalate the tension or advance the plot, and Dutta — making his feature directorial debut — hasn’t developed a deep enough skill set for the scares to be as specific to his movie as Sam’s fears are to her immigrant experience.
- 42ColliderChase HutchinsonColliderChase HutchinsonThere are moments of terror near the beginning, but it gets far too tangled up in a generic narrative that drowns out any sense of vision. Even with some striking visual moments and excellent sound design, it is all in service of regrettably very little.
- 38Slant MagazineDerek SmithSlant MagazineDerek SmithThe film views its main character’s culture, as well as her struggles to suppress her identity in order to fit into her suburban world, with a nonchalance that often scans as negligence.