In ‘Prevenge,’ voices within can be deadly

A delightfully wicked dark comedy, “Prevenge,” now available on shudder.com, proves, among other things, that appearances can be deceiving.

Written and directed by Alice Lowe, she also stars as Ruth, a young woman late in a pregnancy who looks sweet and vulnerable, as functioning that near to child birth certainly is much more difficult.

But by the way, she kills people. This is not a spoiler. The title, “Prevenge” pretty much reveals that something dreadful is about to happen.

“Prevenge” is yet another movie that proves a low budget and tight shooting schedule can be overcome and a nice-looking, well-crafted film can be created. Shot in only 11 days, “Prevenge” also had an astoundingly short pre-production life. The concept behind the movie was thought up by Lowe shortly after she learned she was pregnant in real life. Within two months the script was ready for shooting, and despite being seven and a half months along in herĀ  pregnancy, Lowe took on the lead role.

“Prevenge” begins sublimely with Ruth in a pet store, saying to the store’s owner she is seeking a reptilian pet for her son. The store owner seems borderline sleazy and good at injecting sexual innuendo, but the subsequent sudden and jarring violence seems a bit overkill of the victim. What is the motivation for this brutal murder?

Well, whatever is driving Ruth to her shocking actions is revealed as the film progresses. The father of her baby was killed in a climbing accident, and Ruth seeks out others in the climbing party, particularly the leader, Tom (Kayvan Novak), on who she pins most of the blame for the death.

But there is something else. Ruth is hearing the voice of her yet-unborn baby, who urges her to do the killing. Also, in some funny examination scenes, Ruth’s midwife (Jo Hartley) tells Ruth that the baby in her womb is conducting a “hostile takeover.”

“Just so you know, you have absolutely no control over your mind or your body any more,” the midwife informs Ruth, only adding to her psychosis.

Lowe’s performance is both chilling and comical, as she appears to be befuddled, clearly in over her head — at one point she tries surveillance on Tom that is so inept he easily knows she is tracking him. Yet there is a calculated manipulation to Ruth’s madness.

Not that everything comes off flawlessly. One of Ruth’s potential victims, Len (Gemma Whalen), manages to break away and disappear momentarily, only to reappear wearing boxing gloves. Ruth is like, are you serious?

“Prevenge” is the kind of weird movie that will have its loyal fans. Lowe’s study of Ruth is both intelligent and quirky. She is worthy of sympathy via her mourning and misfiring mind functions, yet she is offing people who are guilty of nothing more than being held accountable for a death that probably was an unfortunate incident of which nothing is to blame but bad luck.

LIFE

The opening scene of “Life,” under the direction of Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House”), is breathtaking, a single-tracking shot within the confines of a space station, as a crew of six people work to capture an incoming space craft that contains some soil samples from Mars.

After that, “Life” becomes “Alien-lite,” a rehash of that classic horror movie’s story of a hostile alien being with no conscience and only driven to survive bringing terror to a crew that cannot exactly abandon ship easily.

The cast is stellar: Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. But when the most colorful character is the first to die, the film flatlines as far as human interest is concerned. Of course by then it is a matter of the humans trying to outsmart an increasingly resourceful and menacing being.

Viewing that opening scene on a big screen is almost worth the price of admission, but only if you go to the cheapest matinee.

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