Inside Scarlett

Director - Carter Mays (Bad Chicken)
Starring - Isabelle Gardo (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah), Arielle Marie (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), and Kevin Flood (1000 Ways to Die)
Release Date - 2016
Genre - Drama/Horror
Format - Streaming (Online Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     A few years back I found Dustin Mills and his amazing world of puppet horror.  Puppet Monster Massacre was my bible and I could not get enough of that film.  This opened up a world I never knew existed.  I started looking around and found several more puppet based horror films.  The first was Misfit Heights which was a zombie puppet musical.  I loved it.  The next was Bad Chicken.  This one was not a horror flick but was still pretty fucking entertaining.  I reviewed both and over time I forgot about them.  A few weeks back I got an email from the team behind Bad Chicken about their newest venture, Inside Scarlett.  If the team behind Bad Chicken was behind this one then I wanted to see it.  I agreed to check it out and here we are.  Thanks for allowing Horror Society and myself the opportunity to review the film!

     The film follows Scarlett (Gardo) who has lived a miserable life.  She has a fear of almost everything and has been neglected by her father most of her life.  He is a t.v. producer and uses his influence to get tail and not raise his daughter.  Now she is pregnant and is convinced that one of her stuffed animals is the culprit. Her father tries to take advantage of her weak mental state and tries to have her committed before the baby arrives but things take a dark turn when he tries.

      When I reviewed Bad Chicken I was not prepared for the experience.  I thought it would be a dialogue rich Tarantino like film, which it was, but it had a very imaginative story that the viewer would miss if they did not dedicate their full attention to the film.  It is a full movie experience that very few films could pull off.  Inside Scarlett is similar which poses a bigger question - is this film a meta-sequel or prequel to Bad Chicken?  Now, hear me out and listen to my theory.  In Bad Chicken there is three talking chickens living among humans.  In Inside Scarlett we get a woman who has a child with a chicken puppet, the one used in Bad Chicken, and has a chicken baby.  This occurs in a dream/hallucination type scenario but could she have mothered one or all of the chickens?  It's been a long ass time since I first saw Bad Chicken and can't recall if they are brothers or not but could this film be a tie in to that one?  I shouldn't be drinking while I write this but it happens.  The acting in this one is fun.  Isabelle Gardo is great in her role.  She was beautiful in every scene and delivered a great performance.  Her character was anxious, awkward, and unstable but she was able to deliver on them all.  She was the star of the show and for good reason.  Her supporting cast was great as well but she was the one on center stage.  The story for this one is very complex and hard to follow but rewarding when you follow through with it.  The story flows like the viewer is putting together a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces.  The pieces are slowly given to the viewer in no context but you are able to put them together mentally.  The story does not flow in a linear sense which makes this one hard to follow.  A little tighter editing would have went a long way in that aspect.  Finally, the film does have a kill here or there but that is not the main focus of the film.  This film is very story driven and focuses more on the characters than their actions so the gorehounds will not be happy with this one.  With that being said, the cinematography is brilliant in this one.  We get some beautiful shots that you rarely see in indie horror.  Overall, Inside Scarlett was not the film I was expecting but that only added to the overall experience.  Mays is one hell of a filmmaker and once again knocked it out of the park.  A must watch for any movie lover.