Call this a consumer advisory. I stopped by the Blockbuster across the street from my apartment on Thursday night and rented the just-released DVD of French horror flick Inside. When it played at the Toronto fest last fall, Scott Weinberg raved about it, and I survived a memorable midnight screening at Fantastic Fest a couple of weeks later. As Scott said, it's well-crafted but incredibly brutal and violent. The Weinstein Co. picked it up and, as many of us suspected, a theatrical release was bypassed and it was sent directly to DVD, unrated, on their Dimension Extreme label. Scott's review was even quoted on the back of the box: "Unrelenting, brutal and stunningly violent."

Dimension Extreme has a "rental exclusive" deal with Blockbuster. I thought I'd save a few bucks by renting instead of buying. First problem: The rental version doesn't include the comprehensive 55-minute "making of" feature that a friend had recommended. Second (and even bigger) problem: the only version available at the store where I rented is the R-rated version, cut from 83 to 75 minutes.

You thought that with all the love we've been throwing at Austin's Fantastic Fest we'd probably forget all about good ol' L.A. Screamfest. Not with me on horror watch! The event runs from October 12 to 20, and if you happen to be located anywhere near the legendary Mann's Chinese Theater -- you just might want to duck inside to see what sort of murderous mayhem is going on.

And the Screamfest looks to be starting off on the right foot this year: Last night's opening night film was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead! After much praise from the audiences at Toronto and Fantastic Fest, the master's latest zombie opus will hit the west coast with much excitement and gore. And the fun doesn't stop there. The festival will also offer Robert Rodriguez's director's cut of Planet Terror (which is awesome) and a 25th Anniversary screening (and cast reunion) of Friday the 13th Part 3. Yes, in 3-D!

Attendees will also get to check out the long-awaited DVDquel Return to House on Haunted Hill, a screening of the great-looking 30 Days of Night (and the video prequels Blood Trails), David Arquette's festival fave The Tripper, and a variety of genre titles of various shapes, sizes and nationalities. Of the Screamfest flicks we've seen, we've already given a strong seal of approval on the quiet but creepy Alone, the robust zest of Wrong Turn 2, the Pakistani lunacy known as Hell's Ground, , the freakishly ferocious Inside, and the apocalyptic awesomeness that is The Signal. Plus I keep hearing that Shrooms is pretty amusing, Buried Alive is gruesome, and Storm Warning is really solid.

You know how certain amusement park rides (usually the really scary or herky-jerky ones) have warning signs that say "Look, if you're pregnant enough that you can rest a mug of coffee on top of your belly, then you're definitely not allowed to get on this ride"? I'm paraphrasing there, but already you get my point: Certain rides are too physically strenuous for pregnant women to deal with. Well, I'd like to propose that the ferocious French horror flick À l'intérieur (aka Inside) get one of those signs. Bottom Line: Not since Rosemary's Baby has there been a film to freak out the preggos. I think my water broke three times during À l'intérieur.

Another question: You know how Japanese horror took the film festivals, the arthouses, and the remake machine by storm a few years ago? I was generally underwhelmed by most of those movies. But this new wave of freaky French fright flicks? Dang, all of a sudden I'm a big fan. From Calvaire and Haute Tension to new arrivals like Frontiere(s) and À l'intérieur, I'm starting to think the French take their horror fare very seriously. And I know it's popular nowadays to dislike the French, but if they keep offering imports like this one, I may just pull a Johnny Depp and purchase a palace in Paris.

The plot is a wonderfully stripped-down affair: An extremely pregnant young woman (who recently lost her husband in a terrible car accident) is scheduled to have her baby the next day. So her plan is to spend Christmas Eve alone at home -- miserable gal that she is -- and then check into the hospital in the morning to give birth. Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately there's this outrageously crazy psycho bitch who's entirely convinced that our heroine's unborn baby ... is hers. And let's just say our villainess is not averse to getting her hands (ahem) dirty while extracting the unborn child. That's pretty much it: Two women, one night, several unlucky bystanders, and more fake blood than Herschell Gordon Lewis ever dreamt of.