It’s What’s Inside (2024) is What Mind-Bending High Concept Sci-Fi is All About
Title: It’s What’s Inside
First Non-Festival Release: October 4, 2025 (Digital/Streaming Platforms)
Director: Greg Jardin
Writer: Greg Jardin
Runtime: 103 Minutes
Starring: Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, David Thompson
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
To walk in someone else’s shoes means to see things from their perspective. Their lives, experiences, and identities help shape the way they interact with the world. By opening yourself up to other’s point of view, you can hopefully find more empathy for the people around you.
Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini) are traveling to their old high school friend Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) wedding. The night before, however, they plan on hanging out one last time with their other high school pals Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and Brooke (Reina Hardesty). The first surprise of the night comes in the form of Forbes (David Thompson), their estranged high school friend, who arrives with a high-tech game to pass the time, one that involves literally switching their minds and bodies with one another.
A twisty sci-fi horror comedy, It’s What’s Inside delights with its captivating story and compelling characters.
Out of the gate, It’s What’s Inside doesn’t play around with its stakes when it begins diving into the ethical implications of its seemingly harmless high tech party game. Initially met with wonder, after just a few rounds of the game, the party gets dangerous. Uncovered jealousy and secrets threaten to tear the friend group apart, but it is because of these quickly crumbling and re-forming relationships that makes It’s What’s Inside so interesting. Once things get lethal and the body calculus gets tricky, the initial sci-fi comedy takes a sharp turn into its horror and thriller sensibilities.
Much of the comedy and interesting story beats come from the confrontations and accusations of the characters. It starts harmless enough with surface-level jokes about appearances or behavior before devolving into a war over past indiscretions and new considerations. Tangling the web more and more, It’s What’s Inside delights in the psychological minefield that is this dysfunctional friend group’s dynamic. The motivations aren’t all the same either. Some take advantage of their situation to satisfy desires or to settle scores, while others are just there to vibe in the novelty of the experience. With each body swap, these character dynamics remain the same while the new body-mind combinations twist the situation just a little more each time.
Since only the mind of a person can truly know their own identity, It’s What’s Inside plays into wish fulfillment fantasies and worst nightmares equally. Who wouldn’t want to be in the body of a hot influencer if they could keep their mind? For others, they fight to keep the upgrade they got in life while others fight to take back what is theirs. When the stakes change and sacrifices must be made, the characters fight about it in a compelling manner. Blows aren’t just exchanged physically but mentally too. Since the group is well-acquainted with each other, it makes the tactics each use to win rounds of the game, as well as the ensuing fights afterwards, more biting.
The cast does an incredible job of keeping the audience, and each other’s characters, on their feet as they take on each other’s personas and beyond. It’s difficult enough to convincingly play one character but to handle multiple characters who are also being secretive about their identities is audacious to say the least. It’s tough but that is no problem for the cast. Without a single bad performance among them, each actor brings so many considerations with each new round in the game. It’s What’s Inside takes on a whole new meaning when more complicated feelings betray the general vibes a character projects and how the shuffling allows characters to say so much about each other without directly saying it.
It might not be traditional horror but It’s What’s Inside is a fun and engaging film that revels in the existential dread associated with its particular brand of body horror. Interesting characters, endearing performances, sharp dialogue, and a truly electrifying concept make It’s What’s Inside a standout genre effort of 2024. While not fully horror, the Netflix acquired gem leans into the wackier elements of its premise enough to be worth checking out for all horror cinephiles. Don’t miss out on the hottest game of the year; stream It’s What’s Inside today.
Overall Score? 8/10
