PREVENGE

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/ VOD/download Director Alice Lowe Cast Alice Lowe, Ruth Jo Hartley, Kayvan Novak The vengeful killing spree is a well-worn horror path, so it helps to add some novelty deaths (à la Theatre Of Blood’s Shakespearean theme) or a distinctive killer. Female avengers aren’t that uncommon, but Alice Lowe’s directing debut adds an extra twist, making protagonist Ruth (Lowe herself ) heavily pregnant.

Shot while Lowe was with child, Prevenge provides further evidence that making horror less male-denominated benefits everyone in the audience, as female perspectives can freshen up old tropes. The fact that Ruth’s driven to kill by the insistent voice of her unborn daughter is disturbing. And in making monstrous commonly felt emotions about loss of control, Lowe’s script makes darkly ironic play with the way we discuss motherhood (“Baby knows best!”). With its blunt-object bathos and vicious stabbings, it makes jolting gear shifts from horror to comedy.

All that said, as Ruth works through her shitlist, the film never quite manages to overcome the essentially repetitive, episodic nature of this subgenre.

Extras Lowe’s joined by her editor, DOP and producer for a commentary which goes into entertainingly granular detail – down to pointing out that, say, an out-of-shot fridge was actually a cupboard. You also get an 11-minute Making Of and the trailer.