‘The ick’ is having a moment. Used to describe anything from the unseemly romantic advances to mishandled food pairings, the omnipresent idiom derives power from its simplicity, an involuntary reaction that’s more reflex than reason. Though the phraseology is relatively new, movies have been courting this sort of knee-jerk revulsion since their inception, frying our cinematic nerve endings with wanton violence, hygienic catastrophe, and disastrous word choice. Viewers have built up a tolerance after a century of celluloid confrontation, to the point where excessive versions of tried-and-true affronts have become the coin of the realm, acting under the assumption that every queasy-making gambit has already been pursued. It’s What’s Inside would beg to differ.

The initial, nauseous itch is far less novel, concerning a group of college friends who reunite on the eve of one of their weddings, even if the familiarity of the situation doesn’t provide anything in the way of comfort. Though the gathering comes to include eight individuals, our dual entry points are Shelby (Brittany O’Grady), an anxious 20-something who’d do well to delete her socials, and Cyrus (James Morosini), her out-to-lunch boyfriend who specializes in mid-argument table-turning. Their general state of disrepair is lightly tousled about in the party’s early hours, but all interpersonal squabbles are quickly put aside with the arrival of an unexpected, long-lost friend named Forbes (David Thompson), who carries a comically ominous briefcase at his side. 

Thompson’s silhouette, which cuts a ghastly shadow on a cold, dark night, proves symbolic of the movie writ large, diving headfirst into devilish cliche, hiding in plain sight with hardly a scrap of subterfuge. It’s powerful image making in service of winking style, a mark that writer/director Greg Jardin hits over and over again throughout his feature debut. Defined by the sort of chic, knowing remove that elevates a film’s floor while lowering its ceiling, It’s What’s Inside prioritizes harried editing and flashy interstitials over anything substantive. One wishes the calculus tilted a little further in the other direction, as the formal flourishes only hit at a modest clip, while the thematic intrigue leaves enough meat on the bone to get a viewer through the winter.

Yes, that mysterious suitcase; it contains a contraption that allows the attendees to temporarily swap bodies with one another, and while the Freaky Friday conceit is one we’ve witnessed before, it’s hardly ever been so ravenous, let alone horny. Rather than concerning themselves with the identities associated with their fleeting physical forms, Jardin’s characters treat their new shells as vehicles primed for test drive, though the intrigue here is stifled by the screenplay’s lack of imagination. By refusing to allow any character to trade genders across the film’s multiple switch-a-roo’s, Inside robs itself of both the deeper introspection and naughty, knotted thrills that remain so alluringly on the table. It does slightly better with race and socio-political outlooks, but the feeling that Jardin and company are pulling their punches is inescapable.

Refusing to open these assorted cans of worms is likely an acknowledgement of the philosophical and moral briarpatch they present, but it could just as easily be a case of not wanting to overextend both the audience and the personnel on hand. Inside’s collection of relative unknowns already has quite the task, attempting to establish characters in the opening act that will remain recognizable as their ticks and affectations quickly migrate from one physical form to another. Jardin’s employment of Suspiria-deep red lighting as a means of tracking consciousnesses across bodies is a nifty trick, but even with just eight primary cast members, the ensemble is too large to properly navigate. The actors do their best, especially Johnson and Alycia Debnam-Carey, who morphs from vapid influencer to woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown with steely grace. There’s no doubt they’re all grateful for the exposure, but given the balletic requirements of the story, you wouldn’t call this an ideal showcase for an up-and-comer.

Beyond being a victim of its own ambition (and ultimately its lack thereof), Inside is also subject to some remarkably bad timing. Jardin’s screenplay, which began to take form in 2017, already feels a touch antiquated, lacking 2024’s curiosity about the gender spectrum as well as our ever-so-slightly more salient views on race and generational wealth. Just as importantly, it arrives after a slew of gamified house party thrillers have already made an impression, and if you somehow forget to liken this one to Ready or Not or Talk to Me, there’s simply no escaping the Bodies Bodies Bodies comparisons. That the aforementioned Halina Reijn flick is both funnier and more incisive is somewhat beside the point; this is a scheduling issue, exacerbated by the heavy syndicated reports of Netflix spending a gobsmacking 17 million dollars to bring this to their platform. One would be forgiven for expecting something boundary testing given the eye-popping price point, which makes the presence of so many recent doppelgängers all the more damning.

But none of them had ick like this, and for all of It’s What’s Inside’s faults, the stomach-turning deployment of its central device makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. In completely severing the body from the mind, Jardin conjures a form of jealousy that’s bone deep, wherein our human shapes become property to be protected, coveted, and, most alarmingly, taken for joy rides without consent. The movie isn’t bold enough to fully reckon with this concept, though perhaps that should be viewed as a form of mercy. It’s unsettling as is, nodding to the role that physical subjugation has played across history, from forced servitude all the way down to women’s reproductive rights. Perhaps that’s overthinking something that’s more immediately elemental, but Inside allows space for any number of extrapolations. It might not take that dangerous road itself, but clearly showing you the path isn’t nothing, and neither is that impulse to take a shower the moment that the credits roll.