The conceit of writer/director Alice Lowe’s debut feature Prevenge is a darkly comic slasher-flick with a twist, not only in the film’s perspective being that of the slasher, but that this slasher is a heavily pregnant thirty-something year old woman.

The lead character Ruth (played by Lowe, whilst actually seven months pregnant, no less) has experienced the double whammy of the loss of her partner, and the news she will have to ready herself to bring a new life into the world. These two conflicting anxieties are consolidated in the sardonic voice of Ruth’s unborn baby, urging her to commit grisly murders in a series of viscera and comedy filled set-pieces.

The serial nature of the film is used intelligently by Lowe, as we are treated to a well-focused procession of idiosyncratic, and fantastically original characters. For the majority of the film, Ruth and the object of her malicious intentions are the only two characters in any particular scene. One would expect, this being a super low-budget affair, that this was done out of necessity, however there is the side effect of allowing us undistracted access to deeply mannerismed, and carefully constructed comic characters. Dan Renton Skinner as a horny vendor of exotic pets, and most especially Tom Davis as the vile, lurching, 70s DJ ‘DJ Dan’, are particular standouts.

‘The topics of grief and expectancy are not particularly inviting to trite or insensitive observations… Lowe has approached the subjects with the proper respect’

Bravely, for an independently made feature, the film’s score is allowed to come to the forefront, rather than quietly and anonymously dwelling in the background. A 70s inspired electronica and synth heavy effort from Toydrum imbues the film with the appropriate atmosphere of malignant threat. In conjunction with the casting of Kate Dickie, and considered cinematography by Ryan Eddleston, the score lends real credence to the film’s right to exist as a theatrically released feature length film, as opposed to something that may have been comfortably relegated to a TV spot.

The topics of grief and expectancy are not particularly inviting to trite or insensitive observations made merely for shock value or cheap laughs. It is all the more relieving that Lowe has approached the subjects with the proper respect, and has crafted a sensitive and accomplished debut feature, in equal measures funny and sorrowful with a gasp-inducing violent streak.

‘Lowe spoke of bucking the trend in a male dominated profession, as not only a woman writer/director, but a working, heavily pregnant one at that’

At the following Q&A Lowe spoke of bucking the trend in a male dominated profession, as not only a woman writer/director, but a working, heavily pregnant one at that. Lowe gave an excellent account of herself, coming across as notably smart and articulate. In discussion of her almost total creative control over the project, she supposed it resulted in what is by far her best work. This led to a musing that this is a primary reason as to why the British film industry is guilty of creating such a deluge of dire comedies. With producers being so risk averse, many good projects are hamstrung by the need to follow established sensibilities, as Lowe quipped: ‘Richard Curtis is fine, but only Richard Curtis needs to make Richard Curtis films’. We should be thankful, therefore, that Lowe has had the desire to break free of such curtailing pressures, and deliver what will surely be, like her previous work, Sightseers, a cult comedy horror.

Jonathan Atkinson

(Image courtesy of Western Edge Pictures)