Review of the horror film “The Conjuring.” The Evil Within by Bishal Dutta

The horror film “The Conjuring” was released. It Lives Inside is the feature debut of Indian-American director Bishal Dutta. In the film, he mixes the usual horror tropes with the study of immigrant trauma, and if the first works quite effectively, then with the second, according to Yulia Shagelman, Not everything succeeds.

The film premiered at the important genre festival South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, where it won the Audience Award. The reasons for the audience’s favor are clear: “The Evil Within” is a tightly put together hour and a half story. In it, despite the obviously small budget, there are quite impressive visual moments and a truly scary monster, which the creators wisely hide from the audience for most of the running time in order to give him an expressive appearance closer to the end. There is also a pretty heroine, who organically makes up for the sketchiness of her character. What else is needed to be completely scared and to show the empathy necessary within the framework of the plot?

Bishal Dutta, like his Australian colleagues, the Philippou brothers, who directed this summer’s main horror sensation “Two, Three, Demon Come!” (Talk to Me), rejects the techniques that have been fashionable in recent years to make horror films “sublime” or “artistic”. He returns to the usual genre developments, uses moves and methods proven over decades, and the originality of his film is given by the environment where he, clearly based on personal experience, places his story. This is a community of Indian immigrants living in a gingerbread North American town. Their religion, traditions, brought from home and fears acquired in a new place become the breeding ground for the “Evil Within”.

High school student Samidha (Megan Suri) was born and raised in America. She speaks English without an accent and the last thing she wants to do is stand out among her white peers: she shaves the hair on her arms, processes her selfies with a brightening filter, annoyedly brushes off her mother’s (Niru Bajwa) request to help her prepare prasad – an offering to the goddess Durga, whose holiday The community is going to celebrate. Sami, as she prefers to be called, has even almost stopped communicating with her once best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), preferring her new white friends. Moreover, she behaves strangely: she hides from people, flinches at every rustle and walks everywhere with a glass jar, in which, as she admits to Sami, an ancient Evil is locked.

Sami, of course, doesn’t believe it and frivolously breaks the jar, releasing Evil out, which has the most unpleasant consequences. Here, like it or not, you have to immerse yourself in the myths and beliefs of your historical homeland, remembering the old fairy tales that your mother once told, and that her nanny told her. It turns out that the demon Pishacha has settled in the town, feeding on negative emotions. Now Samidha needs to drive him back into a suitable vessel, and also save Tamira, who was dragged away by the demon somewhere – and she has exactly a week to do everything until he becomes invincible, having had enough of Tamira’s horror.

Not forgetting to frighten the audience with sudden sounds, the play of light and shadows and a couple of inventive deaths, Dutta considers different options for an immigrant existence: complete assimilation, stubborn preservation of one’s own identity, or something in between – the compromise option is chosen by Sami’s father (Vik Sahay), who also observes Indian customs, and fit into American life without difficulty, and treats his daughter’s struggles with understanding. The director himself, judging by his work, also followed this path, being inspired by both American horror and Indian legends. However, he insists, it is possible to defeat evil, including that which has settled in the soul, only by turning to one’s roots and rejecting everything superficial, even if this process turns out to be very painful.