PREVENGE (2016)

Studio:       Shudder
Director:    Alice Lowe
Writer:       Alice Lowe
Producer:  Vaughan Sivell, Jennifer Handorf, Will Kane
Stars:     Alice Lowe, Dan Renton Skinner, Jo Hartley, Tom Davis, Leila Hoffman, Kate Dickie, Kayvan Novak, Mike Wozniak, Tom Meeten, Marc Bessant, Gemma Whelan

Review Score:

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Summary:

Believing that the voice in her head is her unborn baby driving her to kill, a pregnant widow goes on a murderous rampage.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Pregnant widow Ruth comes to believe that her unborn daughter is telling her to kill the people she blames for the death of her husband Matt, whose cord was cut to save the rest of the group on an ill-fated climbing trip. Ruth begins by slitting the throat of sleazy pet storeowner Mr. Zabek.

Ruth next goes to an empty disco and hits on misogynist DJ Dan, who mistakes Ruth for a fat woman. Ruth goes home with Dan and castrates him. Dan’s senile mother briefly interrupts, but Ruth tucks the old woman back into bed and leaves.

Ruth sets up a job interview with Ella Harding, who comments on Ruth’s pregnancy interfering with corporate career goals. Ruth kills Ella at the conference table.

Ruth sets up a session with climbing instructor Tomas Hamdan, who led the group on the day of Matt’s death. Tom refuses to teach Ruth when she infers he played a role in Matt’s death.

Ruth has another prenatal checkup with her midwife. Ruth stresses that the midwife is not to report anything to social services, as Ruth fears the baby being taken away from her.

Ruth makes small talk with a man named Josh as she waits for his roommate Zac to return. Zac arrives and Ruth caves in his head. Although Ruth wishes to spare Josh because he is innocent, the baby’s voice convinces Ruth to kill him to so that she doesn’t leave a witness.

Ruth stalks Tom, but retreats when he notices her following him.

Ruth confronts a woman named Len in her home. Len puts on boxing gloves to defend herself, but Ruth still kills her. Ruth escapes through a dog door as police arrive.

Ruth returns to the midwife, who worries about how Ruth refers to the unborn baby as though it is sentient and communicative. Ruth visits Matt’s grave and also has a vision of his rope being cut during a yoga meditation.

Ruth paints her face like a skeleton and attends Tom’s Halloween party. Ruth hesitates with killing Tom when she discovers that he has a pregnant wife named Jess. The baby threatens that she will kill Ruth if Ruth does not complete her revenge for Matt’s death by killing Tom. Ruth and Tom have a tense confrontation during which Tom claims Matt told him he was planning on leaving Ruth, although Matt did not yet know Ruth was pregnant. Ruth’s water breaks and she is rushed to the hospital.

Ruth is surprised to discover her baby is normal. Worried about Ruth’s mind, the midwife refers her to someone to talk to. Ruth still confronts Tom at a cliff’s edge and prepares to attack.

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Review:

Many expectant mothers feel like they can communicate with their unborn babies, though Ruth’s situation is a special case.  The daughter incubating in Ruth’s womb literally speaks in Ruth’s mind, at least that’s what Ruth thinks, and that tiny child’s voice is commanding her to kill.

Ruth went into a spiral of depression after the unexpected death of her husband Matt.  Ruth’s warped worldview has only worsened since.  Driven by feelings of oppression, repression, and marginalization, Ruth now keeps a kill list of everyone she blames for the boots on her neck.

In between prenatal checkups and yoga meditation sessions, Ruth makes sure to take time for homicide.  Whenever she starts sliding back into sanity by thinking knives to throats won’t ease her emotions, she has an unlikely partner in crime in her belly and in her head issuing pep talks promoting more murder.

From its premise, “Prevenge” probably sounds like a madcap romp of bonkers black comedy dressed up as a satirical slasher film.  Only the back half of that assumption is accurate.  “Prevenge” is more of an arthouse character study whose hints of humor contribute subtly to its quirk factor as undertones.  Overtones are actually covered by wry commentary.

Ruth’s rampage initially takes exclusive aim at a certain sort of obstacle to empowerment.  A pet store proprietor thick with innuendos about stroking his snake is first to feel Ruth’s blade.  Sleazy DJ Dan, who presumes he can have his way with Ruth after mistaking her for a desperately sex-starved fat woman, takes the second spot as another top target.

Ruth’s itinerary appears to be honed in on stereotypes of chauvinist misogyny, yet it turns out she doesn’t discriminate against women.  A prospective female employer delivering a lecture on tabling maternal ambitions in favor of career goals, instead of conducting the job interview Ruth came for, finds her face meeting a conference room table when Ruth decides she has endured enough of the commonplace corporate claptrap.

The connection is clear regarding conceptions “Prevenge” means to challenge about motherhood.  Society says the bulge in a single mother’s belly is a bullseye for perverted predators as well as a burden for the office world and beyond.  For Ruth, it’s exactly the inspiration she needed to go from passive passenger in her own average life to an assertive aggressor righting wrongs through revenge.

Before being bogged down by subtext, “Prevenge” balances its tone with comic swaths focused more on taking the piss out of preconceptions than on chiding them over issues of inequality.  It’s fitting that writer/director/star Alice Lowe is familiar to those who saw her in Ben Wheatley’s “Sightseers” (review here), as that film is an A+ comparison regarding the similar style in play here.

“Prevenge” employs the kind of dry comedy achieved through simple static shots capturing sullen reactions on staid faces.  “Prevenge” is a ‘plain’ sort of movie, and that is meant positively.  There’s honesty in its simplicity about grounding an outrageous idea in a working class reality that works well for relaying a sly message through entertainment.

“Prevenge” shot quickly during Alice Lowe’s real-life third trimester and the resulting run-and-gun guerrilla filmmaking translates to some technical trouble.  Most notably, the camera, whose handheld shakiness is worse than many “found footage” movies, has a fixed focus problem.  The lens doesn’t appear to be on auto, but characters and objects frequently lean into or away from their marks.  Shots then go soft, causing frequent distractions for anyone with an aversion to blurriness.

A murder movie with a mild mix of mumblecore, “Prevenge” is unique among humorous horror films for having a pregnant protagonist and a cheeky angle on what that entails when she is also the antagonist.  Starting from what at first looks like a politicized position, secondary content that might be off-putting to some eventually stands aside for killings to become more about silly situations than presumed preachiness.

On the whole, “Prevenge” takes some lumps from sourcing its soul in indie introspection that scales back the scope.  But the melancholy mood and offbeat setup provide a flavor for societal cynicism not soon to be found in many, if any, other films.

Review Score:  70

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