User Reviews

There's some fun to be had here with this dark comedy. A pregnant woman goes on a murdering spree on the people involved in her unborn child's father's climbing death. A movie like this could have been completely unwatchable so I appreciate that they got the tone just right. The child speaks to her from the womb but it never gets completely goofy. The violence she commits is brutal and bloody and it doesn't attempt to trivialize or justify their deaths.

Despite that, there is entertainment to be had as the more she kills the more unhinged she becomes. At times it's an almost playful performance from Alice Lowe who also wrote and directed it. Overall a respectable movie. Nicely shot considering it was done in under 2 weeks.

Wondering what to do for a hour and a half and wanting to see something just slightly different I stumbled across PREVENGE . Low budget British black comedy written , directed and starring Alice Lowe about a pregnant female going on a killing spree. Hmm . There's a danger that this sounds like a vanity project but I always give a film a chance and did notice that this page is very positive . I did double check that the reviewers were genuine because when you've got an unknown film on this with glowing reviews this usually means they're written by shills who give themselves away only registering when the film is released and never ever writing a comment for any other film

Truth be told PREVENGE exceeded all my expectations and found myself being caught up in the story very quickly. There's not a lot to the premise of "Deluded pregnant woman murders people she doesn't like" but this hardly matters . Ms Lowe who was seven months pregnant during shooting production has made a very quirky offbeat and violent black comedy that caused me to constantly smile. The idea isn't very persuasive , realistic or original but for some strange reason the details such as an aggressive charity worker turning up at someone's door and being greeted in an equally aggressive manner does come across as being somewhat naturalistic. Characters react and interact in ways you might expect them to out in the real world

As I write this one American reviewer has posted a rather negative review. To be fair to an international audience PREVENGE has obviously been made for a domestic audience and you'd need to understand the dark sense of humour we have in Britain . Dare I say we Brits have a very nasty sense of humour ? Regardless of cultural sensibilities PREVENGE is an enjoyable black comedy

After having enjoyed Alice Lowe's performance in Sightseers from 2012, I looked forward to see her directional debut in Prevenge. And I was not disappointed as the movie continues the tone with dark humor and explicit crime scenes. Lowe was heavily pregnant during the making of the movie. She plays the puzzled pregnant Ruth having lost the baby's father and facing birth on her own. Just like in Sightseers she is living on the edge of society in her own illusory world and feels that her unborn child is increasingly dictating her thoughts and actions. The movie depicts a depressing perspective of a pregnant women facing denials in all aspects of society. Nurses, flirting men, job interviewers, landlords, everyone is letting Ruth down because of her "circumstance". But the movie is more than a moral statement. It's a story of how a person can lose grip after a blow of fate. As in the prior movie, heavy violence is shown as a result of the main character's deep obsession. So I recommend this movie only to those who can stand explicit and bloody scenes. Many cynical and funny elements within the conversations make Prevenge an entertaining movie to reflect on with a shaking ending.

Isn't Alice Lowe a POWERHOUSE - Go Girl. Writer, Director and lead in this Psychological thriller, with a spattering of black comedy throughout, about a psychopath's love for her unborn psychotic child. Sounds brilliant(?) Well it is... sort of.

This is one of those movies you really do have to stay with. I very nearly turned off about five minutes in. You have a scene where Ruth, Alice Lowe, is in a pet store asking the owner about buying a reptile or spider for her eight-year-old son; the more dangerous the better. I wondered what I'd let myself in for as the banter was banal and atrociously unrealistic. It was when she dispatched the owner that I began to wonder about her motives.

Unfortunately, the banality and atrocious discourse continued and it wasn't until Ruth puts DJ Dann's mother to bed that I began to warm to the film; it's a touching and humorous scene with melancholy overtones. It's her first big venture so some leeway can be given, especially when from that pivotal moment in the movie the direction and acting got so much better.

Lowe does a great job of a being an expectant mother and is pretty good at being creepy and threatening, not something you'd expect of a mum-to- be.

Kayvan Novak is brilliant as Tom the climbing instructor. He's an actor who has a wide range of talents including vocal as he's done a lot of voice-overs. In SunTrap (TV Series) and Cuban Fury he shows he's adapt to comedy, here he shows that seriousness is easily in his wheelhouse too, Hope we see more of him.

As the story progresses the audience is imparted to Ruth's and her unborn's reason for their killing spree.

There is some really outstanding mood setting sequences that either get the audience to think, like the very beginning where she's sat alone in the rain; or to feel uneasy as with Ruth's walk entrance to the Halloween party. Alice Lowe is a Writer, Director, and Actress to watch for in the future.

If the opening sequences were better I would've scored it more. I would recommend this to all lovers of black humour and psychological thrillers. You just have to get through the opening fifteen to twenty minutes - it's well worth the slog. Though if your other half is pregnant... maybe you shouldn't... we don't want her getting any ideas...

Good film here, good soundtrack, atmospheric, lots of blood and creepy scenes. It could have worked a bit more about the past (but the past stays in the past!), but what a great perfomance by Alice Lowe (who also directed)!

Someone needs to let Alice Lowe (writer, director and star) make more films because this, her debut as director, is a corker. As black as they come, this dark comedy's premise is novel and it isn't great viewing for any male, adding to the discomfort.

I loved it but after 3 viewings I'm still a bit confused by the ending.

The three Greek Furies that feature prominently in the 1934 Noirish movie, Crime Without Passion, are the central metaphor in Alice Lowe's extraordinarily dark Prevenge, billed as the world's first pregnant, slasher, comedy, horror movie.

In it, Alice Lowe's character, Ruth, embarks on a revenge murder spree goaded on by her helium-voiced, gestating baby.

It takes her to Wales and, in one breathtaking scene, the streets of Cardiff on Halloween night where she claims she almost needed protection from the boozed-up locals in a sequence reminiscent of Scarlett Johnassonn's Under The Skin street walk in Glasgow.

The reason for her bloody revenge spree is only revealed in drips (so I won't spoil it - like a preview I read before the screening did for me) which adds greatly to the narrative tension.

The making of this low budget Film Four offering is remarkable. Lowe was offered development money and finding herself pregnant used her condition to inspire this blackest of black script. She then wrote, produced, cast and filmed (in 11 days) the whole affair before her baby arrived.

Seeing an actor perform whilst heavily pregnant, and genuinely playing a pregnant character, is a rarity (my only recollection is Frances McDormand in Fargo) and Lowe certainly makes the most of the opportunity. Shooting took place in her late third Trimester.

The Furies are the ultimate avenging angels and she uses the extraordinary scenes from Crime Without Passion to symbolise her quest for justice, viewing the movie from the comfort of her hotel room where she takes respite, despite noisily bonking near neighbours, from her exhausting killings.

The killings themselves are simple but bloody affairs and each has hilarious set ups. Can she complete her task before the long arm of the law catches up on her careful forensic clean ups? You'll have to see it to find out.

This is classic British black comedy at its best. Using its low budget as a virtue but still making some moments of genuinely great cinematography, most notably in an exotic pet shop and a beautiful full facial dream sequence in a yoga class.

It has echoes of Mike Leigh's early work and Ben Wheatley's Sightseers is an obvious reference point. Obvious because Lowe is its co-star and it too shares a murderous plot line.

But, comparisons aside, this is an entirely original take on several genres that does its damnedest to create a genre of its own.

Whether there's room for thousands of pregnant, slasher, comedy, horror movies is debatable.

So we'll just have to agree on one thing. The original and best.

One of my partner's strangest pregnancy cravings was to consume this dark slasher film before she popped - hastily written and filmed in the weeks before Alice Lowe herself did likewise. The fact that this authentic angle is there gives this otherwise unfocused narrative a strange gravity. It ultimately amounts to just one improbable murder after the next but Lowe's glowering sarcasm gives each interaction (with a succession of brilliantly cast folk) a nice edge. It does feel a bit first-drafty and there are some holes in it that make Prevenge unravel before the finale but the nature of how it was filmed and why I watched it will likely leave this particular film as an uncanny experience. A dark night of horrors before a totally new day.

Ruth is a pregnant woman on a killing spree dictated by her unborn child, seemingly holding society responsible for the absence of a father.

It surely earns points on originality, this is a really unusual and transgressive movie. Unfortunately loses points because of an unlikeable protagonist and continuosly creepy images and situations, all this leaving a really bad taste in your mouth while watching it making you feel uncomfortable and not in a "good" way (this anyway may ultimately be the end goal of the filmaker and may appeal to a specific audience). You may be tempted/intrigued to see it or even like it if you like deep transgression and you are bored by traditional movies.

I'm no doctor, nor a woman but I can imagine Pregnancy is stressful. Not as stressful as Alice Lowe's Ruth in her 2016 horror comedy Prevenge. She's got a bun in the oven and it might just turn out to be sourdough. So the reel question is... that joke was bad enough, let's just get to the review.

I truly believe that comedy is cultural. Some jokes are universal (slapstick for example) but some are region-specific. This is how I feel towards Prevenge. It is a movie made for England. The entire thing hangs together like a surrealist painting of what pregnancy feels like. Never letting you feel relaxed in its company, and never giving you the full picture. Only glimpses of what could be the correct outcome.

For this I admire it. Bold films are hard to find and Prevenge (irrelevant of its actual quality) is a bold film. To make a woman appear to be possessed by her unborn child forcing her into a homicidal spree is quite the task, to attempt to make that outline a comedy is even more complicated. However, for the most part, Prevenge succeeds.

It's inarguable that Prevenge is a film you have to buy into. You have to allow yourself to be submerged into this logical insanity that Ruth (our protagonist) inhabits, but if you do then it will hand you something back. Something deep and prying, something unexpectedly nasty but ultimately rewarding.

I can understand that if you don't want to enjoy Prevenge then you won't. The film will become impenetrable. The lead will be annoying and the storyline intolerable. I don't know if I can recommend Prevenge with a clean conscious. I found the feature to be unsettling, disturbing, and most importantly of quite brilliant. This is a film that wants to reach deep inside us and draw out our feelings. It doesn't long to be funny, it wants to be disturbing. Prevenge is proof that it's easy to be gory and nasty; it's complicated to be distressing.

The film is carried by Alice Lowe, who writes, directs, and stars in her creation. This is her vision. Form her previous work I knew that Alice has a dull stillness about her, this is capitalized to maximum effect in Prevenge, she can portray sorrow and comedy in the one expression and that makes her unique. This is made all the more impressive when it is revealed that she was pregnant during the shooting of the film. There is nothing flashy or impressive about the directing or style of the film aside from it matches the bizarre dreamlike storyline.

If you want a film that has brains in its head but is also mad as a bag of frogs you will be hard pushed to not put Prevenge at the top of that list. Think Babadook with a laughter track.

7 evil babies out of 10

This isn't much of anything. Any jokes are unsophisticated and fall flat. The comedy horror-gore is pointless, and the plot has no twists, no turns, no reason to follow it.

I read that this was written in 3 days, and it shows. Edit, polish, rewrite, wait, reread, edit, polish, rewrite. That's how it's meant to be, to ensure that you're putting out something good.

The acting was pretty good.

Could have been a lot more, but ultimately, devoid of art, devoid of humour.

Prevenge , black comedy horror written, directed and starring Alice Lowe as Ruth or was it Michelle or ....Its a great movie featuring a lot of faces that you will recognise but aren't sure where from. Ruth is after getting revenge on the death of her partner, and is getting directions from her unborn baby. It's a bit gory at times, but the saving grace is the witty and the sometimes intentionally banal dialogue. If you liked Alice Lowe's previous film she starred in Sightseers you will love it. PS The DJ Dan scenes are great and made me laugh out loud and scream at the same time. 7/10

We all know that pregnant women are supposed to get strange cravings. Most of the time these are usually nothing more than for the odd toastie in the middle of the night with perhaps a disgusting filling or two. Ruth's cravings, on the other hand, are a good deal darker. Egged on by the voice of her unborn baby girl Ruth gets a craving to kill people and it would seem with justification since all of her victims were, in some way, responsible for the death of her baby's father.

"Prevenge", in case you hadn't guessed it, is a comedy and a very black one. It was written and directed by the multi-talented Alice Lowe who, up until now, was better known as the female half of the team that brought you "Sightseers". She also plays Ruth, and plays her superbly, and her victims are made up of a host of outstanding British character players, including the monstrously underused Kate Dickie. Naturally, this isn't a film that will appeal to everyone, (I think pregnant mothers should stay well clear), but if you have the same very sick sense of humour that I do then seek it out; you certainly won't regret it.

Alice Lowe has a twisted dark sense of humour. And after this, I'm a little bit afraid of her too. And yet, because of this, I find myself strangely drawn to her. What that says about me, I don't know. But I kinda wanna watch everything she's done now.

As an indie film, it's pretty good. But when you know the facts, that it was written by Lowe in three and a half days, directed by her and filmed in just 11 days, and starring in it whilst 8 months pregnant, is a remarkable effort; and I would imagine, quite inspiring for any would-be filmmaker.

Of course, it didn't hurt to include some additional genuine talent in its cast, such as Jo Hartley of This is England fame, Gemma Whelan of Game of Thrones fame, Kayvan Novak (the Fonejacker guy) and the best murder victim character Tom Davis as DJ Dan.

It's all very very British. Which is also why this works as well as it does.

I can't wait to see what Alice Lowe comes up with next when she decides to do her own thing again.

How can critics call this a comedy? Insane pregnant woman goes on a murderous rampage killing all the people who she imagines her unborn baby wants dead. Oh, and every victim never fights back to save their own lives. Unpleasant unbelievable experience all around. Still can't believe this got 95% on rottentomatoes.

great little flick by Alice Lowe (also, check out "Sightseers", not hers but with her), i stumbled upon. I didn't expect anything from it, but I got pleasantly surprised. And it's maybe not the story that keeps you hanging on, but the weird and great characters like DJ Dan, the greasy f**k, who lives with his mom?!? English dark humoured dialogue, nice bloody FX, and well performing cast. Can't wait to see what Alice Lowe is doing next.. 7/10

Ditching her partner-in-crime Steve Oram from Ben Wheatley's SIGHTSEERS (2012), a movie puts her name on the map, British generalist Alice Lowe again, goes on a killing spree in her directorial debut PREVENGE, alone but not alone, as its title's coinage proclaims, her character Ruth is carrying a baby girl, and this unborn fetus (heard through an irksome child voice) ostensibly leans on and cajole her gravid widow mother to avenge the death of the father whom she is deprived a chance to meet.

A shoestring revenge tale (shot in 11 days) told in a chronological fashion seeing Ruth track down a total 6 individuals who are responsible for the death of her husband (Bessant), sequentially and bloodily murder them (save for the last one in the abrupt and ambivalent ending). Her modus operandi is straight-forward, catching them unawares and slashing....

continue reading my review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks