One of 2024’s buzziest horror titles is coming to Netflix just in time for the spooky season and the official trailer was released today teasing the existential nightmare ahead. Earlier this year, the streamer acquired the worldwide rights to It’s What’s Inside following its high-profile Sundance Film Festival premiere for a whopping $17 million, the biggest acquisition of the event and one of the most expensive purchases in Sundance history. Written and directed by Greg Jardin, it earned rave reviews from critics and was even favorably compared to Danny and Michael Philippou‘s 2023 hit Talk to Me. Now, Netflix is pulling back the curtain for general audiences before the film haunts screens everywhere on October 4.
It’s What’s Inside takes place at a party where old friends gather for a night of pre-wedding fun before the big day. However, everything quickly descends into horror when an estranged member of the group, Forbes (David W. Thompson), arrives with a mysterious game for everyone to play. The trailer shows him opening up a briefcase and telling everyone to keep their phones off and the case’s contents a secret. He reveals a strange machine that, when he attaches electrodes to everyone’s temples, gives them all a nightmarish trip that nobody is prepared for. Chaos and confusion ensue and old secrets, grudges, and desires resurface, leaving everyone in a daze and ready to turn on each other.
Jardin’s trippy horror flick also happens to be his feature directorial debut. Until now, he’s been best known for his work helming music videos and teasers for series including 13 Reasons Why and Colin in Black & White. Things couldn’t have gone much better for his first film, which earned a strong 82% from Rotten Tomatoes. It wasn’t an easy road to this point, however, as he detailed to Collider’s Perri Nemiroff in an interview during Sundance. Getting it made required getting the idea in front of the right producers, resulting in a chain reaction that brought aboard William Rosenfeld, Kate Andrews, Jason Baum, and Raúl Domingo as well as Oscar nominee Colman Domingo as an executive producer with Ulf Ek and Robert Kapp.
“I mean, roadblocks, I think just getting it made – funded. I wrote it back in 2016 and it just had a series of fits and starts, really. Just getting someone to believe in it and then getting it financed.
One of our producers, Kate [Andrews], gave it to another producer, Raul [Domingo], who gave it to Colman Domingo, who gave it to another producer, [William] Rosenfeld , and that’s ultimately how it got made.
But it was just really perseverance and just kind of not giving up, I guess. There were really many times when I really just didn’t think it was gonna happen. Definitely didn’t think we’d be here.”
Who Stars in ‘It’s What’s Inside’?
The cast of It’s What’s Inside is led by The White Lotus alum Brittany O’Grady and I Love My Dad‘s James Morosini, who play a couple going through relationship strife in the lead-up to the marriage. Notably, O’Grady starred in not one, but two acclaimed horror debuts this year as she also played the lead in Pedro Kos‘s gripping Fantasia hit In Our Blood. Though the spotlight is initially on them, everyone will get a chance to shine in the film, including Alycia Debnam-Carey, Gavin Leatherwood, Reina Hardesty, Nina Bloomgarden, Devon Terrell, and the aforementioned Thompson.
It’s What’s Inside hits Netflix on October 4. Check out the trailer in the player above.
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