Mom and Dad (2017)

Mom and Dad plays like a zombie movie if the undead were swapped for psychotic parents. Seriously stylish, from the beautiful retro opening credits to the expert use of music (satisfyingly Carpenter-like in places) to the rich cinematography, but also rapid and unforgiving in plot (you've got to respect a film that starts by showing a mother leaving her baby in the path of an oncoming train) this packs a hell of a lot of fun into its not even 90mins.

Which, when you realise it was written and directed by Brian Taylor, the writer/director of the Crank franchise, makes perfect sense!

We meet a white middle class household. Mom, dad, big sister and little brother. They're the kind of people who have those motivational/aspiration script-y signs everywhere in their home. The scene looks kind of perfect but quickly we see that, of course, things aren't that way.

Mom (Selma Blair) does a typical white woman "I'm an ally!" move of apologising to her Chinese housekeeper for something she deems offensive said at breakfast, but in the process offends the woman more. Dad (Nicholas Cage) seems close to his son, but at work turns the photo of his kids face down to jack off at his desk before taking a nap and ignoring a call from his wife. He's obsessed with his youth and all the opportunities he missed out on to have the life he does now.

No one is particularly likeable. But that's okay.

One of the best aspects of Mom and Dad is that we see the story unfold from both perspectives in the central family. As things start to go batshit the kids fight to stay alive, but more interestingly, we're shown what mom and dad are doing, too. It's chilling and hilarious how rational all the adults are about trapping and murdering their own children. Everything else about them is the same apart from this sudden, insatiable, specific urge to kill and it's highly entertaining to watch!

This was an excellent find after some false starts one evening. For sure worth checking out if you're in the mood for something blackly comic. Mom and Dad is fast, funny, mean, and streaming on Hulu at time of writing.

Prevenge (2016)

Prevenge is a beautifully British, blackly comic entry into the pregnancy horror subgenre (of which I am a fan, if you hadn't already guessed).

Written, directed and starring Alice Lowe, shot in just 11 days and all while 8 months pregnant. Can we all just take a moment to say "badass"? 

This title has been on my radar for a little while, but upon learning the above I had to promote it to top of my watchlist. However much I did or didn't end up liking the film, its own conception and birth story was phenomenally impressive!

Lowe stars as Ruth, a recently widowed and heavily pregnant woman who, when we meet her is making her way through a list of people to murder. 

The reason for their deaths is made clearer as the story unfolds, but the main drive behind Ruth's homicidal behaviour is the fact she can hear her unborn baby commanding her to do it.

And I loved that the drama wasn't really in Ruth's grappling with this task - in fact, she doesn't really seem to mind this wet work. This woman is lost in the world after losing her husband; the only thing she has is the baby. So she does as she's told.

❝Baby knows what to do. Baby will tell you what to do.❞

− Ruth's midwife, unknowingly endorsing the deaths of others.

When see Ruth briefly fail to execute these internal instructions, she experiences a violent physical reaction (taking place in an empty subway/underpass, this may well be an homage to Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, a film I'm desperate to see but haven't yet managed to, although I've read a lot about it!). In another scene, she carries on a deadpan, darkly funny conversation with "Baby", bemoaning the demands children place on parents.

How Ruth is able to continue these murders without being caught is never really discussed, but ultimately she's forced to question the true origins of the voice she's been hearing, with a climax that makes you wonder if she indeed actually cares.

There's a quote that's stayed with me that I think speaks volumes for the character of Ruth. Widowed, adrift and alone in a world full of creeps, arseholes and overly chirpy midwives, she has no connection to anyone now, apart from the baby inside her. 

❝I'm not grieving, I'm gestating... Fucking rage.❞

In a break from her normally dry, disdainful demeanor, she spits these words at a softly-spoken potential victim as he tries to calm her down, in a moment of pure emotion and vulnerability. A "force of nature", like the midwife claimed in one of several scenes with her that are loaded with double meaning.

The fact that most other characters are painted so broadly (pervert, idiot, bitch, etc) was not a problem for me, as I associated with Ruth more than I probably should have. I, too, am eternally annoyed and irritated by the decisions other people make. I really understood her scorn and the way she moved through the world carrying it along with her child.

Prevenge is streaming on Shudder right now, and well worth checking out. Watch that title screen and tell me it didn't make you excited, at least!

Grace (2009)

NB: Content/trigger warning for baby and birth-related horror!

Despite a juicy premise, this film was a big disappointment. Grace sadly lacks the gut-punch necessary for baby-horror.

We follow the tale of Madeline (Jordan Ladd), a heavily pregnant woman who loses her husband and baby in a car crash. To the shock of everyone, Madeline insists on carrying the child to term regardless and, in a strange twist in the birthing pool, she somehow "wills" the baby back to life again...

We know where this is going. The poster tells us as much. Baby Grace doesn't want milk, this new mother soon discovers: she wants blood. Madeline - a staunch vegan, no less - must now cross some serious ethical lines in order to keep her baby happy.

I'll admit, at first glance this appears to be good quality ingredients for a bone-chilling stew. The topic of babies in horror alone is one that makes most people deeply uncomfortable. But Grace is further loaded up with two additional subplots: (1) A very, very odd mother-in-law who's kept her milk supply active for decades and wants to steal Grace for herself(!), and (2) Madeline's midwife is actually an obsessive ex-lover of hers. In fact we're left to wonder whether Madeline only married at all, in order to have a baby? The opening sex scene certainly shows her absolutely checked out from any kind of pleasure in fucking her husband. She's literally just there to conceive.

For a film with such a small cast, this all plays out just as muddled as it sounds. There are some nice moments (the gathering flies in the baby's room; Madeline cutting a victim's veins open with scissors! Squick!) but for the most part it's paced too sluggishly with a lack of real unease about what's going on. Which is crazy when you think about it. Baby-based horror that isn't horrific?! Grace also suffers from a real kicker of a horror genre disease: the absolutely absurd, shitty CGI'd last shot before the credits. I was already over this movie by this point, but that was the very final nail in the zombie baby crib.

The most fun I had watching this was playing a game of "Real Baby or Fake Baby?", spotting the rubber doll used for the more gruesome Grace shots. 

Grace was based on a short film of the same name, from the same writer/director (Paul Solet) but instead of keeping any tightness in plot that a small project might have - much like a short story or a play - this feels like the plot was bloated up to meet the confines of feature-length. It's a simple, decent idea surrounded by too much extra stuff that doesn't really work.

There are vastly superior films about pregnancy, birth, babies and motherhood... Rosemary's Baby, Inside, Antibirth, Shelley... and obviously a tonne more - tell me in the comments if you have a favourite one! My advice would be to check out one of those instead.

(But if you must watch this, it's streaming on Shudder at time of writing).

Pet Sematary (1989)

Having always shied away from watching this due to obvious concerns of dead/dying animals, tonight I was feeling brave and ventured forth. I was happy to see that there's minimal animal trauma - maybe even less than a normal horror movie!

Directed by Mary Lambert - a woman! Shouldn't be a cause for celebration, but it still is! - this was originally meant to be a Romero flick. Due to delays in filming George had to split on the project, so Lambert stepped in as director of this little beauty, based off of Stephen King's own screenplay.

Fact: Mary Lambert also directed Madonna's "Like A Prayer" video 🙏🏻

Quick Pet Sematary plot summary for anyone such as myself who honestly was clueless about it: A happy family of four (dad Louis, mum Rachel, young daughter Ellie and toddler son Gage) move into an idyllic house in the Maine countryside. The place is lovely - apart from the fact it's directly next to a road that Mack trucks come speeding down with alarming regularity.

They have an old man neighbour across the way, Jud Crendell (Fred Gwynne: Herman Munster!) who helpfully explains to the family that the path they see going into the woods from their backyard leads to a "Pet Sematary" (the sign is misspelled, hence the title is too). The place is pretty cool looking, and being there results in some pondering on death and loss - much to the annoyance of Rachel (Denise Crosby).

She wants to shelter her kids from the subject of death. Seems healthy! Though she does have her reasons...

In any case, when Rachel and the children are visiting her parents for Thanksgiving, the family cat, "Church" - short for Winston Churchill - a gorgeous Russian Blue, gets run over. To spare Ellie the pain of losing her beloved pet, Jud leads Louis through the Pet Sematary and up a hill, emerging at a Native American burial site. 

For reasons not made wholly clear, Jud encourages the burial of the dead moggy here, even though he knows from personal experience that this soil has "sour" resurrection properties.

Louis is like "yeah, right" and then "holy shit!" when Church actually does come back, but this kitty isn't happy and spends the rest of the film hissing with glowy eyes. He's not the cat he was.

So you see where this is going. Young children, speeding trucks, an ancient Indian burial ground? Yup, Church isn't the only being brought back to life during this runtime. But as Jud later says, "the person you put up there ain't the person who comes back...", and as tempting as it is to try and reclaim a lost loved one rather than deal with that loss... "sometimes dead is better."

Things get a lot "better" before the end credits.

Negotiating child death in a film is not easy, and Pet Sematary does it pretty excellently all while still giving the audience gasp-worthy moments. We don't see the accident, but we are shown a bloody little shoe. Similarly, we only ever get glimpses of Gage's tiny corpse, never a full on look at it. This builds the tension to when we actually see him again.

And Gage is completely adorable in life, so even though it's not a shock he dies; it is sad. When he returns... well, he's an adorable little monster.

An adorable little KILLING MACHINE monster.

Favourite moment alert: When his doctor father injects his neck to "put him back to sleep" - father's words, creepy much? - in an amazing scene (below), and he toddles off whimpering "no fair!". It's... it's perfect.

I haven't even mentioned Ellie's psychic abilities, Rachel's nightmarish sister, or Victor Pascow, the ghost jogger acting as a kind of spirit guide to the family. 

He first encounters Louis right before dying, and then continues to manifest throughout, offering warnings and handy advice, such as proper name pronunciation and tips on hiring a rental car!

My verdict on this film? Way less animal death than the name would suggest and a satisfyingly sad tale to boot. I wish I hadn't taken so long to see it!

Shelley (2016) & Antibirth (2016)

This turned out to be an inspired "fucked up pregnancy" double bill I made for myself. While both about an unconventional pregnancy, these two films could not have been more different.

Where Shelley was a quiet, slow build; Antibirth was an obnoxious, trippy mess. Where Shelley was set in nature, at a remote cabin on a lake; Antibirth took place in the slums of a city, full of warehouse raves and low-budget motels.

Muted natural colours (aside from a blood red title screen) versus an overload of bright colours, loud music and ever-changing TV commercials. Simply living characters, without even electricity or running water in their home, versus relentlessly bong-hitting, drunk party girls.

Shelley tells the story of Louise and Kasper (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Peter Christoffersen), a married couple living a quiet life. Louise desperately wants a baby, but is unable to bear children after her last failed pregnancy resulted in a hysterectomy. When their new Romanian maid Elena (Cosmina Stratan) decides to help them, her surrogacy quickly becomes very unusual.

Antibirth, meanwhile, deals with a surprise pregnancy. Lou (Natasha Lyonne, basically playing her Orange Is The New Black character but not in jail - not a complaint) wakes up from a heavy night of partying feeling decidedly worse than just her usual comedown/hangover. Her stomach starts growing at an alarming rate, she's hungry all the time, yet sick to her stomach. 

Is this just one rave, one bong hit too many? Or does the sinister local drug dealer/pimp boyfriend of her friend Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) have something to do with it?

Oh yeah, and Meg Tilly is in this, too!

The differences go as far as pacing, too. The pacing of Shelley is extremely measured, it's a very, very slow burn, and even its conclusion is quiet and still - though not without making the viewer think about what the future holds for this family, and the world at large. 

It's a film that demands your attention, not least because a fair amount of the dialogue is subtitled (languages spoken, according to IMDb: Danish, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Romanian!) but a lot of it also is non-verbal, with reactions, realisations and contemplation taking place silently. It's a sense of creeping dread, rather than a loud announcement of horror.

In contrast, Antibirth moves along pretty quickly... though not always making complete sense. Lou is a train-wreck, and you can't help but feel for her as things finally start getting explained as to just how messed up her situation is.

Its climax, as one quote on its poster suggests, is "especially fucked up!". It's pretty fucking insane and amazing. I did not see that coming!

Being so different, I don't feel forced to choose a favourite between these two films... though if I had to recommend one over the other, it would probably be Antibirth, just for being so out there and such a trip to watch. I really don't want to give anything away, but if you've seen it feel free to comment with your reaction to that ending!

Both films are streaming on Netflix at time of writing.

And the latest WTF award goes to...

This sounds interesting enough to warrant a look:

Twenty-six directors. Twenty-six ways to die. The ABC’s of Death is perhaps the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning fifteen countries and featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children’s educational books, the motion picture is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death.

The poster? I...

I am assuming it's meant to be weird and wrong and mad... to my eyes it's just coming off as funny.

Dawn Of The Living Dead / Evil Grave: Curse of the Maya (2004)

"Don't mind him, he's a bit protective. And retarded."

Good lord. Okay well, this film isn't very good. And it isn't from 2004* as that link suggests.

For the most part it's just plain dull and for the remainder it's laughably absurd and kind of confusing.

Renee has just been released from a psychiatric hospital and her fiance Martin Sheen Jeffrey buys them a house in the middle of nowhere to help her convalesce.

As with all best laid plans in horror movies, this goes horribly wrong. Renee isn't imagining all of these increasingly weird encounters. She's not crazy you guys! In fact, she's just about the only sane character in this mess.

It transpires that a Mayan family were murdered in the house, and their zombie spirits are wandering around, requiring a proper burial to put them to rest. Needless to say, a good few extras die before this fact is unearthed.

The deaths and the gore are the film's only strength - unless you count the theme song (and yes, the entire film is available on Youtube, so I'm glad I only splashed out 99p on it).

The zombies claw and gouge and it's all very mucky and smooshy in their rotten hands. So that's cool.

Best gore/special fx/my jaw just dropped off moment has got to be the zombie baby.

Yes, you read correctly.

Good guy (hunky handyman love interest) turned bad guy (Mayan murdering a-hole) Michael gets attacked by his ghoulish offspring. It looks like something from Brain Dead.

He punches it, by the way. He punches a zombie baby in its face.

Apart from that though, the film stinks worse than an undead diaper. Find that part on Youtube and save yourself the pain of having to watch the other 88mins.

There's a rape scene that might not actually be a rape scene at all, it's hard to say; many instances of shitty CGI...

...a bizarrely scored "sexy" dance and let's not forget the fact that much of the film is shot in eye aching half-light.

Your money isn't in question here, but I'd say don't even waste your time on this one, ladies and germs.

"The dead don't know they're dead.
"Wait, are you telling me... the dead don't know they're dead?"

*I was wrong. It IS from 2004. Mind blowing.