I don't know how it happened, but I have now spent two weeks in a row watching films about pregnant women in peril. This time around it's Natalie (Alicia Sanz), a realtor who is at the end of a long day hosting an open house when she is approached by "the client" (Raúl Castillo). Natalie has some tragic backstory, tied to the father of her unborn child (of course), but that gets pushed aside when the film focuses on the horrible scenario of her trying to keep away from someone who seems intent on killing both her and her baby.
Co-written and co-directed by David Charbonier and Justin Douglas Powell, this is the kind of slim premise that needs a whole lot of confidence and style, or maybe even just great tension and/or gore, to make it worth your time. Sadly, it has none of those things. If these film-makers have confidence in their own abilities, it is sorely misplaced. While I wasn't a big fan of one of their previous efforts, The Boy Behind The Door, that at least had a bit more to think about, as well as a bit more visual style. This is a step down. The lean script isn't effective, the tension isn't sustained due to an inability to make viewers believe how credible the threat to our leading lady is, and the whole thing just feels flat in every way.
Sanz and Castillo aren't bad, but they're not given any opportunity to be very good either. They do what is asked of them, which means the former spends a lot of the time acting nervous and afraid while the latter stays menacing and pretty unstoppable. There's one scene that has Castillo blurting out a savage statement of intent in a way that makes you think everything is about to step up a notch, but then it's back to the standard flat level of everything else.
There's some obvious commentary here if you want to read it, but it feels unintentional, a lucky side-effect of the main premise being about a man trying to forcibly end the life of a soon-to-be mother. This could have been improved immensely by, for example, making our villain less of a mystery. Although I am all for films that don't feel the need to explain everything, and killers without obvious motivations or triggers are often the most disturbing, I think this could have been reworked to create a connection between the leads that would have given us even more, or at least a little, substance to chew on.
I feel as if I should try to praise someone, anyone else, here. I can't though. That doesn't mean that they haven't done any good work. It just wasn't good enough to make up for the disappointment of the writing and direction.
3/10
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