Review of Prevenge (2017) by K Nife C — 27 Mar 2017

How many people can say they wrote, directed, and starred in their own movie while they were pregnant? I believe Alice Lowe is the only person who can claim to have done so, and she did it well. Lowe who some might recognize from "Hot Fuzz", "Sightseers", and "Garth Merenghi's Dark Place" makes her feature length directorial debut with this extremely dark comedy.

In it, she is directed by the voice of her unborn child to murder the people who let the father-to-be die during a fateful climbing expedition. She begins with a spirit of vigilantism, but as her murders progress she becomes increasingly sadistic by berating and critiquing the mundane lives of her victims as she slips into a misanthropic prepartum malaise.

As you follow her bloody campaign, the laughs diminish and the horror starts to set in. This film has quite a lot in common with one of my favorite films so far this year: Macon Blair's "I Don't Feel at Home in this World Anymore".

They both concern a female protagonist who has difficulty coping with loneliness and the callous, stupid world that pays her no mind, then there's shocking gore. They diverge however in how said protagonists deal with that problem, and in the case of "Prevenge", we are left with a decidedly more pessimistic message.

It's still well worth the watch considering the great gore effects, the disturbing laughs, and a soundtrack that brings to mind "Stranger Things" and classic UK horror.