FirstBorn

A young, mixed race couple living in London become first time parents but their daughter seems to be a portal for an evil entity. Good job the girl's grandfather just happens to be an expert on the occult, how handy! Initial impression was that this could be a gritty British horror/drama, the acting was good as was the cinematography. Sadly it turned out to be rather slow, not in the least bit scary and lacked any plausible explanation. The demon, or whatever it was, could have been from any number of similar mediocre 21st Century horror movies. I have never heard of director Nirpal Bhogal before but could be a name to watch, given better material.

I'm a bit disappointed by this movie. Not that I had I hopes though after seeing the ratings it got, but sometimes you stumble on a good movie despite the ratings. But it's not the case with Firstborn. i guess for a low budget horror movie it isn't that bad as the acting is decent. The wrong things to me were the weak soundtrack, the slow story, but mostly the fact you have to wait way too long to have a glimpse of the demon that is actually not badly done. If they would have put the evil creature a bit earlier in the movie I would have rated a bit more. Another horror movie I will only watch once.

Am writing this short review as I feel I could have been misled not to watch this because of other reviews. I felt there was a hypnotic Gothic atmosphere (imagery and sounds/soundtrack), very good acting (Eileen Davies especially), it has both a drama/slice of life about parenting, responsibility and the "solitude of Being" I guess (even when you're a toddler..) and fear of the unknown.. themes flowing through.. the characters are three dimensional enough yet there is sufficient space left for your psyche to fill in in possible "blanks", a sort of impressionistic canvas.

The ending left a lot more questions than answers. It definitely leaves a lot to be desired from the movie but it's good for a boring day. The acting is decent and the story line is intriguing... just a lot more things should have been answered within the movie. too much Is left up to viewer interpretation.

Another reviewer already pointed out that this is uneven, but as he also said, it has quite some nice ideas. And it is shocking at the right places, and has some really nice visual effects too (for a low budget movie). We get treated with a fantastical story that seems to have way more backstory than we actually get to see. So there is even more in this or could be maybe in the future (?) ... although to be fair, I don't think this will happen.

Actors are doing a decent job overall and there is enough to hold the viewers attention. There are some decisions that may feel forced or wrong, but overall the movie does good in that department as well. So if you like to take a chance on a horror movie and don't mind a couple of bumps along the road ... enjoy