Womb — Womb(VOD)
Womb is a new horror/slasher movie being made available on digital platforms on 29th April.
Womb begins, unpromisingly, with the most mendacious legend in horror films; “based on true events”. However, when we first see the killer get up in a very slasher film outfit, a rather gruesome camouflage one-piece set off by thick sunglasses, we know we are on familiar ground. This may just be as well. The idea of ‘womb raiders’, of individuals stealing babies from heavily pregnant women, is such a dark idea that a serious treatment should ideally avoid genre traps. The filmmakers go out of their way to present this form of crime as a type of crime wave with old-fashioned montages of newspapers screaming sinister headlines. You really wouldn’t want this to be a thing, but then again, it would just be another day in the 21st century.
Hailey (Taylor Hanks), a recovering addict, seems to be getting her life back together again, having found true happiness with her new boyfriend Raymond (Myles Clohessy). Hailey, heavily pregnant with Raymond’s child, becomes a target for a deranged killer intent on taking her child.
This is generally a well-made thriller. Director Bridget Smith has a good eye for compositions and tracking shots. She also has a talent for finding physiognomies the camera loves. This is a film filled with generally good-looking characters with the exception of red herring man mountain policeman Big Country (Brian Anthony Wilson).
However, the film doesn’t quite work. Partly this is due to an overly complicated plot required to keep suspense ticking over and suspicions not landing correctly. Unfortunately, the small number of characters means that audience expectations turn out to be pretty accurate.
Part of the problem is that when the exposition comes on the part of the culprits, it feels forced when there are legal routes to surrogacy on offer. In fact, given the film’s setting the whole ‘explanation’ has a rather silly Southern Gothic feel to it.
On its own terms, Womb works rather well. It is somewhat hamstrung by attempting to aspire to relevance by exploiting a sinister social phenomenon, but the script by Michael Walsh is well-characterised, with convincing individuals and drops hints that it never contradicts.
Performances by the mostly tyro cast are strong, no doubt helped by the script. Especially decent are Hanks and Ellen Adair as Raymond’s sister Martha. Honourable mention goes to Gianna Gagliardi as teenager Darlene the daughter of Big Country’s sister Loretta (Corrie Graham) who finds herself holed up with Hailey in the cabin chosen for the birth.
If Womb is to be counted as a success, it is as a slasher film/attack on an isolated cabin mash-up and not as implied by its title, an examination of a current social ill. In spite of a twist that is both cruel and illogical, I can recommend the film unreservedly as an enjoyable Saturday night popcorn experience.