This movie starts out darkly hilarious, a subtle balance of comedy and horror augmented by excellent performances from a stellar cast of new and veteran actors. However, the overt comedy is quickly abandoned with horror increasing exponentially and morphing into an unrelentingly nightmarish scenario. This tonal shift escalates, providing some uniquely horrific moments and visuals while maintaining echoes of enough comedy to elicit a chuckle or two from the more jaded viewers. This movie does trod well worn territory of pregnancy terrors: from body dysmorphia to the pains of birthing, the uncertainty of what you might birth into the world and the abject terror of potentially birthing life at the precipice of global apocalypse. While covering equally explored ideas of grief and loss, the film manages to still infuse a uniqueness to proceedings, through a clever script and committed performances. The last act seems to lose some of the cohesion and tautness, with some extreme lapses in plausibility and contrivances that detract from the mood and tension but ultimately the movie is horrifying and riveting and I found myself stretching looking for flaws… While flaws are certainly not beyond the devoted nitpicker, and the ending may prove divisive for some, I would qualify this movie as one of the gems of Shudder’s increasingly awesome original library and recommended to horror fans unreservedly.
Anything for Jackson (2020)