I went to see T2 Trainspotting recently and before it there was a trailer for Prevenge. Now I hate trailers that misrepresent films or just show the good or sexy bits, but this one seemed to be bang on. After it my friend who knew nothing about the film leaned over and said “is it about a pregnant serial killer?” Well, it is, but it is also about so much more.
Alice Lowe who wrote and directed Prevenge plays heavily pregnant Ruth. Pregnancy is known to make women do strange things such as eat coal or pickles by the jar. In Ruth’s case it makes her kill people. Her unborn baby seems to have total control over her actions, telling her what to do.
There is also some genuine motivation which we discover during the story, but for much of the film Ruth comes across as a loopy murderer plucking out targets sometimes for genuine reasons, sometimes at random. An early victim, a sleazy DJ played by Tom Davis, comes to a particularly bloody end which I’m not quite sure he deserved (although he does vomit into his wig which would make me pretty furious).
The violence is often brutal but also brutally funny. In one scene Ruth slashes at an unsuspecting housewife (Gemma Whelan) who tries to fight back while wearing boxing gloves. The gore factor is high but so is the laughter factor. Not surprisingly there are echoes here of Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, which Lowe both wrote and starred in. Prevenge also reminded me of Lizzie and Sarah, the one-off BBC comedy written by and starring Julia Davis and Jessica Hynes.
But if you want to get really wanky, it is most redolent of David Cronenberg’s body horror films such as Shivers and Videodrome, where reasonable people suddenly become "possessed" and turn into monsters. Lowe’s expectant mother doesn’t have an alien inside her, she has a baby (beware of "foetal attraction" headlines), but it also seems to have the ability to change her behaviour radically. Mums will, no doubt, say that there is more than an element of truth about this.
Of course, David Cronenberg’s films were never as funny as Prevenge, which boasts a cast of familiar comedy faces. As well as the aforementioned Tom Davis and Gemma Whelan there is Joe Hartley, Kayvan Novak, Dan Renton Skinner and Mike Wozniak. Tom Meeten meets a particularly quick and sticky demise which is somehow so vicious it is really hilarious.
“Baby knows best,” says Ruth’s unborn child as it sends her on another spree. And you will go and see Prevenge if you know what’s best for you.
Prevenge is released on February 10.
Read a classic interview with Alice Lowe here.
