FALSE POSITIVE (REVIEW)

Dir. John Lee

Reviewer. Martyn Wakefield

This is a strange little baby to say the least. On the one hand you have A24, a studio so fundamentally grounded in artistic, drawn out, slow burning tense horror that this really begins to tick all the boxes then evolves into a ninety minute piece about maternal "mommy brain" and a pantomime villain that suddenly goes against everything the film could have been.

Justin Theroux and Ilana Glazer see renowned Doctor, Pierce Brosnan, to help them conceive. As expected they do but with complications and as such Glazer has to make a choice on which of here triples survive. Interesting at this point the film could have delved into many different plot points and deep dives into maternal horror however decides to go down the straight and narrow with a more procedural medical and relationship thriller.

While there are some scenes that are toe curlingly difficult to watch, they never amount to much and as such it's hard to really shelve this as a horror film that it proclaims to be. The films biggest frustration is that it never really commits to anything. One moment gives a jolt to the spine with a shock event and in doing so could have put this amongst the likes of SAINT MAUD and KILL LIST but instead is yet another imagined scene, alongside those of attempted murder and homosexual affairs that are just put in here to add a disturbing cinematic stereotype that "gay is bad".

Brosnan pulls out his best villain mode which is always entertaining, if somewhat out of place here with a stiff cast of side characters who seem to have a reason for being so stoic which is never explained, all while Theroux badly hides a darker side. Glazer really carried the film but once the effect of seeing her visions is realised, it quickly becomes a hard gimmick to swallow.

None of the umbilical chord of horror that is teased throughout actually amounts to anything and unfortunately despite some great talent and some effectively shot scenes without relevance, FALSE POSITIVE is a stillbirth.