It Lives Inside
Neon | Release Date: September 22, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
13
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Los Angeles TimesJen YamatoSep 22, 2023
Proving 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. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfSep 20, 2023
It 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. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 22, 2023
It Lives Inside knows you can use the cover of monsters and things that go bump in your psyche to examine the real-life horrors. But when the message starts to eclipse the medium, it’s time to get out. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeSep 22, 2023
The potency of It Lives Inside — and why it might be worth checking out even if it isn’t wholly satisfying — lies in how it introduces Sam and Tamira’s relationship and links it to Hindu lore. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBrandon YuSep 21, 2023
It’s a promising debut from Dutta, who offers a fresh premise that proves a natural fit for the genre. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 20, 2023
When 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. Read full review
60
VarietyDennis HarveySep 19, 2023
Though the results aren’t terribly original or memorable, they do provide a creepy 90-odd minutes. Read full review
50
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 22, 2023
The film’s disparate elements and overarching themes don’t entirely come together by the end, leaving the story’s emotional throughline weakened as a result. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsSep 22, 2023
What follows is a movie that wants to be a teen movie and an allegory for the immigrant experience but never wholly coheres. Read full review
50
The Associated PressLindsey BahrSep 20, 2023
It 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. Read full review
49
Paste MagazineJacob OllerSep 20, 2023
It 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. Read full review
42
ColliderChase HutchinsonSep 21, 2023
There 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. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 20, 2023
A 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. Read full review
40
EmpireJethro RobathanOct 26, 2023
Some fresh ideas spruce up this horror, but it’s an ambitious debut which forgets that less is more. A lack of focus is the real killer. Read full review
40
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaSep 22, 2023
It Lives Inside feels desperate to project specific cultural experiences, but it has neither the tact nor the aesthetic flair to weave a competent horror movie around them. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 15, 2023
The 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. Read full review
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