The 49th Sitges Film Festival will be raising its curtain with the European premiere of Inside, directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas (Kidnapped, Extinction), with screenplay by Jaume Balagueró ([REC]) and his usual collaborator Manu Díez, and starring Rachel Nichols (The Loop, Tokarev, Fantastic Four) and Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Punisher). It’s an Adrián Guerra and Núria Valls (Nostromo Pictures) production.

The audience’s worst fears will come to life in Inside, the opening film at the 49th Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, which will be taking place from October 7-16th. Once again, the Festival is banking on local production for the opening gala, reaffirming its commitment to Catalan cinema.

Inside’s story follows in the footsteps of the film it’s based on, À l’intérieur, directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, and that made an impact on audiences at Sitges 2007 and has become a cult film.

Pregnant and depressed, a young widow tries to rebuild her life following the fateful car accident where she lost her husband and partially lost her hearing. Now, about to go into labor, she’s living in a remote house in the suburbs when, one Christmas night, she receives an unexpected visit from another woman with a devastating objective: to rip the child she’s carrying from inside her. But a mother’s fury when it comes to protecting her child should never be underestimated. Rachel Nichols and Laura Harring play the two main roles in this brutal and bloody hand-to-hand combat.

Inside is produced by Nostromo Pictures, a Barcelona based company that’s behind Rodrigo Cortés’ films Buried and Red Lights; Grand Piano, that opened the 2013 Sitges Film Festival, or the box office sensation Palmeras en la Nieve. It has the thrillers El Guardián Invisible and Contratiempo well under way.