[Review] Prevenge

As you might've guessed from its snappy title, Prevenge is a relentlessly subversive slasher. A pitch-black comedy-horror film. All coming from the mind of Alice Lowe, who also stars as the film's... disturbed main character.

Ruth (Lowe) is recently widowed and currently 7 months pregnant. She suddenly embarks on a killing spree of anyone who crosses her in some way or another, whether its creepy men devaluing her, or other women shunning her. The twist is that Ruth believes her baby is controlling her actions. "She's driving and I'm just the vehicle," she claims. THE REAL BOSS BABY.

It definitely sounds like an insane premise, and it totally is. But it's slyer than it appears, and the tone is actually quite different from its campy B-horror poster and the film's retro credit sequences. It's more like a droll British comedy... A droll British comedy that suddenly launches into jarring, deranged, and bloody violence every once in a while. As crazy as things are, the narrative is rooted in themes of womanhood and motherhood--prenatal and postnatal fears and anxieties taken to extreme (I mean really extreme) and sharply satirical levels, eventually going from absurd to depressing.

Alice Lowe holds it down with her amusing, misery-filled central performance (she filmed and acted in this movie while she was actually pregnant!). But sometimes the film feels like it drags on a bit too long, leaving the impression that it probably would've had more bite as a medium-short film. Still, I appreciated this thing for its sheer madness and substantially bold plot--in all its murderous glory.

( 7/10 )

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