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Be very afraid

Rocking a dirty mind and a sick sensibility, the British import “Prevenge” sends a pregnant serial killer on a darkly comedic odyssey dictated by her malicious fetus. . .  .

As Ruth, a profoundly lonely expectant mother, Alice Lowe (who also wrote and directed) personifies weaponized gestation. Lumbering and implacable, she bears down on her victims in zombielike obedience to the tiny voice emanating from her uterus.

“Baby will tell you what to do,” a chipper midwife  . . . says soothingly, unaware that Ruth knows all too well that her womb has a view. In a series of gory vignettes that jab insistently at sexism and gender, Ms. Lowe (who, at the time of filming, was barely a month shy of her own delivery date) carefully builds thematic layers. And what initially registers as simple retaliation for the gutter misogyny of random creeps — like a slimy pub D.J. (Tom Davis) who is sliced with Lorena Bobbitt-like specificity — soon evolves into payback for those who may have caused the death of the baby’s father.

At its core, though, “Prevenge” is a brilliantly conceived meditation on prepartum anxiety and extreme grief. Vividly evoking the impotence of imminent motherhood  . . , Ms. Lowe makes Ruth a deeply conflicted avenger. You’ll laugh, you’ll squirm, you’ll want to get sterilized immediately.

– The New York Times, March 22, 2017