Prevenge

Watched this late on a Friday night to kill some time before I could sleep knowing nothing about it other than 'I enjoyed Sightseers' and was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Alice Lowe has done a fantastic job with this project as it is very well written, well directed and well cast. All the acting is very good and it doesn't come across as being a low budget film, despite only having a modest £100000. The concept (pregnant woman goes on killing spree under the command of her unborn child) sounds very corny, but is actually extremely well done and doesn't come across as cringeworthy at any point. The writing is funny and quite suspenseful and the characters are interesting, realistic and I found myself sympathising with the more likeable ones.

Overall I would recommend watching this film if you enjoy traditional black British humour. You shouldn't be disappointed.

Isn't Alice Lowe a POWERHOUSE - Go Girl. Writer, Director and lead in this Psychological thriller, with a spattering of black comedy throughout, about a psychopath's love for her unborn psychotic child. Sounds brilliant(?) Well it is... sort of.

This is one of those movies you really do have to stay with. I very nearly turned off about five minutes in. You have a scene where Ruth, Alice Lowe, is in a pet store asking the owner about buying a reptile or spider for her eight-year-old son; the more dangerous the better. I wondered what I'd let myself in for as the banter was banal and atrociously unrealistic. It was when she dispatched the owner that I began to wonder about her motives.

Unfortunately, the banality and atrocious discourse continued and it wasn't until Ruth puts DJ Dann's mother to bed that I began to warm to the film; it's a touching and humorous scene with melancholy overtones. It's her first big venture so some leeway can be given, especially when from that pivotal moment in the movie the direction and acting got so much better.

Lowe does a great job of a being an expectant mother and is pretty good at being creepy and threatening, not something you'd expect of a mum-to- be.

Kayvan Novak is brilliant as Tom the climbing instructor. He's an actor who has a wide range of talents including vocal as he's done a lot of voice-overs. In SunTrap (TV Series) and Cuban Fury he shows he's adapt to comedy, here he shows that seriousness is easily in his wheelhouse too, Hope we see more of him.

As the story progresses the audience is imparted to Ruth's and her unborn's reason for their killing spree.

There is some really outstanding mood setting sequences that either get the audience to think, like the very beginning where she's sat alone in the rain; or to feel uneasy as with Ruth's walk entrance to the Halloween party. Alice Lowe is a Writer, Director, and Actress to watch for in the future.

If the opening sequences were better I would've scored it more. I would recommend this to all lovers of black humour and psychological thrillers. You just have to get through the opening fifteen to twenty minutes - it's well worth the slog. Though if your other half is pregnant... maybe you shouldn't... we don't want her getting any ideas...

The three Greek Furies that feature prominently in the 1934 Noirish movie, Crime Without Passion, are the central metaphor in Alice Lowe's extraordinarily dark Prevenge, billed as the world's first pregnant, slasher, comedy, horror movie.

In it, Alice Lowe's character, Ruth, embarks on a revenge murder spree goaded on by her helium-voiced, gestating baby.

It takes her to Wales and, in one breathtaking scene, the streets of Cardiff on Halloween night where she claims she almost needed protection from the boozed-up locals in a sequence reminiscent of Scarlett Johnassonn's Under The Skin street walk in Glasgow.

The reason for her bloody revenge spree is only revealed in drips (so I won't spoil it - like a preview I read before the screening did for me) which adds greatly to the narrative tension.

The making of this low budget Film Four offering is remarkable. Lowe was offered development money and finding herself pregnant used her condition to inspire this blackest of black script. She then wrote, produced, cast and filmed (in 11 days) the whole affair before her baby arrived.

Seeing an actor perform whilst heavily pregnant, and genuinely playing a pregnant character, is a rarity (my only recollection is Frances McDormand in Fargo) and Lowe certainly makes the most of the opportunity. Shooting took place in her late third Trimester.

The Furies are the ultimate avenging angels and she uses the extraordinary scenes from Crime Without Passion to symbolise her quest for justice, viewing the movie from the comfort of her hotel room where she takes respite, despite noisily bonking near neighbours, from her exhausting killings.

The killings themselves are simple but bloody affairs and each has hilarious set ups. Can she complete her task before the long arm of the law catches up on her careful forensic clean ups? You'll have to see it to find out.

This is classic British black comedy at its best. Using its low budget as a virtue but still making some moments of genuinely great cinematography, most notably in an exotic pet shop and a beautiful full facial dream sequence in a yoga class.

It has echoes of Mike Leigh's early work and Ben Wheatley's Sightseers is an obvious reference point. Obvious because Lowe is its co-star and it too shares a murderous plot line.

But, comparisons aside, this is an entirely original take on several genres that does its damnedest to create a genre of its own.

Whether there's room for thousands of pregnant, slasher, comedy, horror movies is debatable.

So we'll just have to agree on one thing. The original and best.

Ruth is a pregnant woman on a killing spree dictated by her unborn child, seemingly holding society responsible for the absence of a father.

It surely earns points on originality, this is a really unusual and transgressive movie. Unfortunately loses points because of an unlikeable protagonist and continuosly creepy images and situations, all this leaving a really bad taste in your mouth while watching it making you feel uncomfortable and not in a "good" way (this anyway may ultimately be the end goal of the filmaker and may appeal to a specific audience). You may be tempted/intrigued to see it or even like it if you like deep transgression and you are bored by traditional movies.

Wondering what to do for a hour and a half and wanting to see something just slightly different I stumbled across PREVENGE . Low budget British black comedy written , directed and starring Alice Lowe about a pregnant female going on a killing spree. Hmm . There's a danger that this sounds like a vanity project but I always give a film a chance and did notice that this page is very positive . I did double check that the reviewers were genuine because when you've got an unknown film on this with glowing reviews this usually means they're written by shills who give themselves away only registering when the film is released and never ever writing a comment for any other film

Truth be told PREVENGE exceeded all my expectations and found myself being caught up in the story very quickly. There's not a lot to the premise of "Deluded pregnant woman murders people she doesn't like" but this hardly matters . Ms Lowe who was seven months pregnant during shooting production has made a very quirky offbeat and violent black comedy that caused me to constantly smile. The idea isn't very persuasive , realistic or original but for some strange reason the details such as an aggressive charity worker turning up at someone's door and being greeted in an equally aggressive manner does come across as being somewhat naturalistic. Characters react and interact in ways you might expect them to out in the real world

As I write this one American reviewer has posted a rather negative review. To be fair to an international audience PREVENGE has obviously been made for a domestic audience and you'd need to understand the dark sense of humour we have in Britain . Dare I say we Brits have a very nasty sense of humour ? Regardless of cultural sensibilities PREVENGE is an enjoyable black comedy