It’s What’s Inside: How the Netflix Thriller Hides Its Biggest Twist in Plain Sight

Netflix’s newest thriller-comedy, It’s What’s Inside, is one of the most unexpected films to hit the streaming service all year. Greg Jardin’s body-swap horror movie follows a group of college friends who reunite on the eve of a wedding, and things take a wild turn when their estranged pal shows up with a machine that allows them to transfer their minds into each other’s bodies. Chaos ensues, and It’s What’s Inside delivers a massive twist in the final 15 minutes that alters the way you view the rest of the movie before it.

For those who paid very close attention to the first half of It’s What’s Inside, or went back to watch the film a second time after knowing the big twist, you probably noticed that the film actually hid its biggest reveal in plain sight. WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for It’s What’s Inside! Continue reading at your own risk…

The character of Forbes (David Thompson) bringing his body-swap machine to a party filled with friends he hasn’t spoken to in years is what really kicks off the action of It’s What’s Inside. Forbes has a strange history with the group after he was expelled from college, thanks to the events of a party that involved his high school sister Beatrice (Madison Davenport) being given alcohol and hooking up with Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood). That party substantially altered the lives of both Forbes and Beatrice, sending the latter to a mental health facility for a number of years.

That’s important context to understand the twist, which reveals that Forbes didn’t actually bring the machine to the party. Beatrice was in Forbes’ body and arrived at the party with the intention of getting back at the people who ruined her life. Forbes shows up the next morning in Beatrice’s body to explain what actually happened.

So how is it the big Beatrice twist was hidden earlier in It’s What’s Inside? Well, if you think back to the first round of the body-swap game that the group played, the film introduces an important trick to help keep track of whose mind is in whose body. When the lighting turns red, it shows the real character in the scene, not just the body they’re in. The first time that red lighting shows up is after Forbes lies about which body he’s in. Forbes let everyone believe he was in Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) body, but he was actually in Dennis’. Cyrus (James Morosini) was in Reuben’s body for that round.

When Cyrus confronts Forbes, the two of them are walking through a corridor filled with full-length windows. As you see Reuben’s body step from one window frame into another, the color of the scene changes to red, revealing Cyrus walking in those same footsteps. This is meant to show you that Cyrus is exactly who he says he is. The interesting thing about it, though, is that the body of Dennis disappears behind a wall when Reuben’s inner-mind is revealed. So while their conversation continues, we never actually see the “real” Forbes appear in place of Dennis.

That’s because, as we now know, we wouldn’t have seen Forbes hiding in Dennis’ body. We would’ve seen Beatrice.

Throughout the rest of the movie, the red light never actually shows Forbes, even though it reveals every single other person in the group at one point or another. It seems like maybe that’s because Forbes isn’t ever involved in the same kind of drama as the others, so there isn’t a need to show him. But it’s all an effort to hide the fact that Forbes isn’t actually present, even though his body is.

It’s What’s Inside is a movie that has secrets riddled throughout many different frames and scenes, and there are probably a lot more tells about Beatrice tucked away at different points of the film. It’ll probably take a couple of watches to spot them all.