From the days of Rosemary’s Baby and It’s Alive, pregnancy and birth have long been, let’s say, fertile topics for horror movies. But writer-director-star Alice Lowe, who previously co-wrote and acted in Ben Wheatley’s 2012 film Sightseers, takes prenatal terror in a new direction with Prevenge, in which an unborn child bids its expectant mother to commit a string of murders. Lowe plays Ruth, a grieving widow who believes that her unborn child is speaking to her in a voice she describes as “very articulate” and sounds like a precocious little girl with a highly developed vicious streak. “Children these days are very spoiled,” she muses. “It’s like ‘Mummy, I want a PlayStation!’ ‘Mummy, I want you to kill that man!’” Unfortunately for Ruth, What To Expect When You’re Expecting never said anything about what to do in this particular situation.
The horror-comedy, which marks Lowe’s feature directing debut, played a few festival gigs in late 2016, including a showing at the Chicago International Film Festival in November, and will receive a general release in the U.K. on February 10, 2017. No Stateside release has been announced yet.
[via The Guardian]