It Lives Inside

 Samidha (Megan Suri) has been drifting away from her Hindi heritage. A second-generation Indian emigré teen living in the American suburbs, she can't but help to want to develop her own identity, one closer to her social life at high school as opposed to the one she feels her family is forcing on her. It's the sort of natural and (very) mild act of rebellion that would normally only provide some temporary drama with her family - time, as always, would allow them to reach some sort of balance.
 But this being a very square, teen-oriented horror movie, it leads to a demon trying to eat her instead. Other movies have people killed for having premarital sex, this one puts the protagonist in danger for not speaking Hindi at home or spending the day cooking with her mom.

 It starts with an old, estranged friend, Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), following her around at school in an almost comically creepy fashion, clutching a jar as if her life depended on it. To subtly drive home the movie's themes, we learn that Samidha cruelly ditched her former nice, Indian BFF to fit in better with her new white friends.
 Things come to head when Tamira finally confronts Sam, trying to enlist her help in fighting some sort of entity she insists is trapped in her jar. They struggle, and the jar ends up in pieces on the floor.

 Tamira disappears later that day, and the creepy entity starts following Sam around. Here starts the most enjoyable part of the movie, as she follows the clues left in one of those creepily-illustrated horror movie journals (good thing demons always seem to target artistically-inclined kids first so they can provide some cool artwork to the proceeds) accompanied by some effective, if derivative, supernatural scares.

 It doesn't last, though, and the second act comes to an end with a demon attack set in a swing set that's so ridiculous and unwittingly funny that the movie - which was already on thin ice - never really recovers from it. The demon becomes emboldened afterwards and makes its attacks more overt, which is good because it's a very cool creature design. Unfortunately writer/director Bishal Dutta and his crew botch every single horror scene, and compound on the problems with some very predictable story beats and a defanged, strictly-PG13 ethos.

 It's not a terrible movie -though it does have some pretty bad moments, but it is kind of mediocre: an uninspired teen horror movie - the sort of shit I make fun of Blumhouse for constantly putting out. A shame, because it wastes a promising premise, good acting, decent, atmospheric cinematography and a great monster.

 Its laughably square* message would be a hard sell even if it had a smidgen of nuance to the characters - instead we get things like Sam's mom (Neeru Bajwa) completely failing to even try to engage with her daughter until she comes begging for help with something only tradition can help with - a sour note to their supposedly warm rapprochement later on in the movie.

 Granted, its unambitious teen leanings meant that this was never really going to be for me, but I think it's not very good for what it is either.

*: How square is it? I mean, beyond the whole mommy knows best angle? Let me communicate it by the medium of SPOILERS: The only person who dies in the whole fucking movie is an otherwise nice-seeming dude who (very, very politely!) offers Sam a joint. Screw this noise.