After co-writing Ben Wheatley’s brilliantly twisted Sightseers, Alice Lowe is back with her directorial debut Prevenge, in which she also stars in and wrote. Entering territory perhaps even darker than Wheatley’s films, it follows her pregnant character as her unborn child causes her to kill strangers. After playing at Venice, Toronto, London, AFI, and more, it’ll get a U.K. release early next year and the new trailer has now arrived.
We said in our review, “Veering between dark comedy and somber drama is a flavor of the times in indie film, but Prevenge puts a new spin on this, tying those emotional shifts more directly to the mindset of its lead character than any other movie of its ilk has yet. That’s because the lead is heavily pregnant. Combine that with serial killing, and the stage is set for an agreeably bloody-minded oddball of a film.”
Check out the trailer below for the film also starring Kate Dickie, Gemma Whelan, Jo Hartley, Kayvan Novak, Tom Davies, Tom Meeten, and Mike Wozniak.
A pitch black, wryly British comedy, Prevenge follows Ruth, a pregnant woman on a killing spree that’s as funny as it is vicious. It’s her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth’s actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father. The child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to lure and ultimately kill her unsuspecting victims. Struggling with her conscience, loneliness, and a strange strain of prepartum madness, Ruth must ultimately choose between redemption and destruction at the moment of motherhood. Prevenge marks the directorial debut from Lowe, who is a true triple threat, writing, directing, and acting in the film during her own real-life pregnancy.
Prevenge hits U.K. theaters on February 10th and is seeking U.S. distribution.