The plot focuses on a mourning widow on the verge of giving birth, when she is attacked in her home by a mysterious intruder on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, four months after expectant mother Sarah Scarangella survives a car crash that kills her husband, she makes final preparations for her delivery the following day.

She turns down her mother's request to stay with her for the night and has asked her employer Jean-Pierre to take her to the hospital for her eventual delivery.

Before anything else can happen or be said, the two are interrupted by the revival of the third police officer; having been shot in close proximity by the woman with his riot gun, he survived the attack but is now disoriented and blinded.

The woman then sits in a chair and begins rocking the baby, who briefly cries, as she mournfully looks at Sarah who lies dead on the steps.

[4] Nathan Lee of The Village Voice found the film to be a "nasty number" that was both "repellent" and "uncompromising"[5] while Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News called it "off the hook awesome" and "a traumatically entertaining experience.

"[6] Jason Buchanon of AllMovie gave the film a score of 4/5, and called it "a pitch-perfect balance of grinding tension and inventive gore"[7] while John Fallon of Arrow in the Head gave it a perfect score of 10/10, and deemed it "a real horror film; character driven, suspenseful as hell, smarter than the norm and gory as fuck.

Haunting images carry their own grotesque beauty and there is real emotional depth anchored by a pair of powerhouse performances from the dueling ladies.

"[13] Sarah Gopaul of Popjournalism found Inside to be "a gut-wrenching exhibition of intensity and gore, propelled by strong performances from Dalle and Paradis.

"[14] Steve Dollar of The New York Sun opined that the "darkly stylish and shockingly violent" film was the "essence of grindhouse" and "one of the most edge-of-the-seat, fingers-over-the-eyes flicks in recent memory.

While I recognize that no digital fetuses were harmed during the making of Inside, there's something unseemly and grossly manipulative about treating the baby like some helpless variation on the "Final girl" in a Halloween knockoff.

In execution, it surprisingly lets the audience off the suspense hook to go for CGI-assisted ketchup-sloshing in the almost cheerful Herschell Gordon Lewis manner rather than the nerve-stretching, you-can't-watch-this approach of, say, Gaspar Noé.

[2] Jaume Balagueró, the director of REC, told Fangoria that he may be directing the remake in the future and that it would "accent the terror of the pregnancy situation more than the gore".

Directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas from a screenplay penned by Jaume Balagueró, the film stars Rachel Nichols, Laura Harring, and Andrea Tivadar.