10 Movies Like 'It's What's Inside' You Must Se

‘It’s What’s Inside,’ directed by Greg Jardin, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and received appreciation for its cleverly built and stylistic plot. It is a mind-bending and genre-bending film that can be perceived as sci-fi, horror, horror-comedy, and/or thriller. It centers on a group of friends who come together for a pre-wedding bash.

One of the people brings along a mysterious briefcase that contains a piece of tech he proposes they play a game using. What follows is a bizarre series of events wherein all the people come face to face with their desires, vendettas, and jealousy. After all, they have been body-swapped. Considering the confusing nature of the film and how it treats the confusing-identity motif, here we bring you movies like ‘It’s What’s Inside.’

10. Triangle (2009)

A group of friends coming together only to become targets by a stranger (possibly one among them) is a plot point connecting ‘Triangle’ to ‘It’s What’s Inside.’ The Christopher Smith directorial is set on an abandoned cruise liner wherein a group of people have to take on a mysterious shooter as well as themselves to avoid dying. Dark and psychological in its approach, ‘Triangle’ takes the fun out of ‘It’s What’s Inside’ and replaces it with sheer survival horror.

9. Mother! (2017)

Seeing is believing. Or is it? In Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Mother!,’ inspired by the Bible, centers on a couple, Him (Javier Bardem) and Mother (Jennifer Lawrence), whose tranquil life is upended by the arrival of another older couple. This is followed by a string of bizarre events that start taking a toll on Mother, who begins to question her very husband and the house they live in. Full of biblical allegories, ‘Mother!’ is bound to bend your mind with its psychological tropes, pretty much like ‘It’s What’s Inside,’ which makes you wonder what’s going on.

8. Mandy (2018)

Starring Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, and Linus Roache, ‘Mandy’ offers a unique twisted take on horror by blending it with action and animation. The film follows war veteran lumberjack Red Miller, whose peaceful life is ravaged to bits by Jeremiah Sand, a cult leader. Vowing vengeance, Miller sets off on a gory spree to kill all those responsible, including a demonic biker gang. There is a hallucinogenic motif that the film incorporates, which scarcely ties it to ‘It’s What’s Inside.’ If you are into blood and gore, ‘Mandy’ offers a thrilling watch with Cage’s performance as a bonus.

7. Talk to Me (2022)

Danny and Michael Philippou’s supernatural horror film ‘Talk to Me’ replaces the suitcase with a severed, embalmed hand. When 17-year-old Mia, surrounded by her friends, uses the hand to access the other plane and speak to a deceased loved one, she is successful. Only, she forgets to “close the door.” Soon, they all start experiencing inexplicable phenomena, all of which seem connected to the hand. Spooky and terrifyingly mind-bending, the film is A24’s highest-grossing horror film.

6. Identity (2003)

‘Identity’ features a stellar cast, including John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, and Alfred Molina. Inspired by Agatha Christie‘s mystery novel ‘And Then There Were None,’ the film brings together ten strangers in a remote hotel during a rainstorm. As people start dying one by one, it is suspected that the killer is inside the hotel. Meanwhile, a serial killer responsible for killing a handful of motel guests awaits execution. Full of twists and engrossing, ‘Identity’ revels in making viewers judge the characters’ intentions. The same is true with ‘It’s What’s Inside,’ which makes us wonder who is speaking the truth.

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5. Primer (2004)

If you have found ‘It’s What’s Inside’ mind-bending, ‘Primer’ will make things much worse. A sci-fi that tests your brain’s ability to grasp time travel, the Shane Carruth directorial follows two engineers, Aaron and Abe, who accidentally discover time travel while working on a tech project. Bent on finding out how effective it is, Abe becomes a test subject and goes back in time, setting off a chain of events that eventually leads him to face himself many times. ‘Primer’ relates to the titular film via the human urge to explore the unknown, eventually leading to unfortunate events.

4. Cube (1997)

Vincenzo Natali’s Kafkaesque drama ‘Cube’ follows a group of strangers stuck in a cube-shaped room, one among many fitted with deadly traps. Whether they manage to stay alive and escape depends on how well they assess the rooms. The paranoia, suspicion, and desperation the characters fall prey to while searching for a way to escape binds it to ‘It’s What’s Inside.’ However, ‘Cube’ carries higher stakes as death is a likely outcome.

3. Braid (2018)

Disorienting, twisted, and stunningly stylized, ‘Braid’ follows two wanted women, Petula and Tilda, who decide to rob their mentally unstable childhood friend, Daphne, who lives in a huge secluded mansion. They need to find a safe somewhere in the mansion, which will take time. Meanwhile, they have to play a make-believe game of fantasy with Daphne, in which no one can leave. As Petula and Tilda begin their search, the game turns more and more bizarre to the point of being hallucinatory, and the line between what’s real and what’s delusion fades. The same is the situation that the characters in ‘It’s What’s Inside’ face, although ‘Braid’ takes things up many notches.

2. Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Starring Rachel Sennott, Maria Bakalova, Pete Davidson, and Lee Pace, Halina Reijn’s ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ shares with ‘It’s What’s Inside’ the psychedelic nature of a young adult get-together that precedes a sequence of bizarre events. In the black comedy, a group of friends are having a hurricane party over-brimmed with booze, drugs, and hook-ups. In ‘It’s What’s Inside,’ a mysterious suitcase results in chaos; in this film, it’s a corpse. The tumultuous situations that follow, incorporating the innermost shades of the characters that are revealed, just like in the titular drama, earn ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ the first spot in this article.

1. Coherence (2013)

‘Coherence’ is inclined toward the sci-fi angle in ‘It’s What’s Inside.’ In the James Ward Byrkit directorial, a group of people at a dinner party are subjected to inexplicable events after a comet passes very close to Earth. Identity, existence, and reality come into question when the group realizes that the comet has resulted in a surreal and singularly strange phenomenon in which no one knows what’s real and what’s not. Starring Emily Baldoni, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, and Maury Sterling, ‘Coherence’ offers a gripping watch.

10 Movies Like It’s What’s Inside You Must See