Review: It Lives Inside is a scary supernatural teen thriller

We get so much horror genre on our cinema screens, with so much repetition of ideas and so much plagiarising of style and technique, that it's not often you feel surprised or are left wondering where the film might be going.

That's why I felt Bishal Dutta's debut feature film was so refreshing.

I had no idea where it might be taking me, and even though there were plenty of the usual tropes, here was a new story rooted in the director's culture.

The smart daughter of Indian immigrant parents, Samidha (Mean Suri) has hit the stage of teenage development where she just wants to conform.

She is craving the acceptance of her apple-pie American class peers by ditching anything about her Indian heritage that makes her stick out at school.

This attitude has followed her home, and her successful doctor father (Vik Sahay) plays along, calling her by her Americanised name of "Sam."

Mum Poona (Neeru Bajwa) worries that she has done the wrong thing by her daughter as well as by her family back home by moving to the US for her husband's career.

Poona worries about upsetting the old gods and offers to host one of their expatriate Hindu community's festivals at their home.

Meanwhile, Samidha is discovering that her mother's scary old folk tales didn't stay put in the old country.

Samidha's childhood best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) has become their high school's goth poster girl.

This is something Sam finds mortifying when she's trying to cosy up to high school hottie Russ (Gage Marsh).

But it turns out Tamira's weirdness stems from her trying to keep a Pishacha at bay.

A Pishacha is a Hindu demon that feeds on negative energy and flesh.

When the vessel Tamira has contained this entity in breaks and she goes missing, Samidha becomes its next target to torment.

It exhausts her in preparation for taking her soul.

That's already more backstory than most horror baddies get.

There's passable work from the film's creature production team.

They have invented a plausible figure rooted in religion and mythology.

Actually, the creature takes some time to appear.

Dutta and his team do a brilliant job creating scares from what isn't there, or what might be, throwing at us sharp sound design, with jump scares aplenty.

Just when I think I'm too jaded to fall for it, I do.

The real horror of the film is, of course, high school.

Forget cabins in the woods, high school is the perfect place for horror - it's already so awful, its characters already so dramatic.

Placing the story within the milieu of an Indian high school student who can't run far enough away from her own cultural heritage, even when that's the probable path to salvation, is one of the film's stronger elements.

Having cut his teeth on short films, writer-director Dutta shows real promise.

He has here created what might kick off a handful of sequels.

If that happens I hope he doubles down on the Indian mythology and cultural iconography.

The lead performances from Suri and Krishnan are strong.

There is good work too from Neeru Bajwa and from Betty Gabriel as the sympathetic teacher who Sam comes to in her hour of need.

With the relatively tame M rating, this is less horror than it is a supernatural teen thriller.

It's still probably a bit much for the family.

But don't feel too scared for your teens' souls if they decide to give you a few hours respite form their eye-rolling and fridge-emptying by going to see this at the cinema.