Written and directed by Joe Lam, co-written by Brielle Yuke Li and Nathan Faudree, a couple struggle to learn the truth about the origins of their unborn child– a demonic entity that emerges from the body. Starring: Lauren LaVera, Bill Moseley and Julian Curtis.
There will always be a place for the breed of horror that’s over the top, unapologetic and attempting to create a good time. Joe Lam makes a solid attempt to create an addition to that subgenre of sorts with The Fetus and it works, but only to a certain extent. A key part of the problem is that while it is overt, it’s not entirely self-aware of how ridiculous it truly is. It’s missing that touch to then embrace the preposterous nature and purposefully lean into it. It’s holding back a little, and still attempting to create something more traditional, instead of purely going for it. If you’re going to make a film about an unborn child attacking people from inside its mother, don’t play it safe.
It’s also very heavy-handedly talking about bodily autonomy, consent and a number of women’s health and abortion issues, so while it is nice to see those issues brought to the table, this maybe wasn’t the best way to do it. The writing does struggle in general, there’s Chris (Julian Curtis) who one minute ‘is not there yet’ and the next minute is acting the traditional boyfriend. There’s Lauren LaVera’s Alessa who somehow ends up feeling like the least involved when the story literally revolves around her uterus. There’s also simply not enough fun along the way, the chaos and mayhem are kept fairly low, arguably until right at the very end, and it’s disappointing they didn’t break out the big guns with some proper blood and gore.
The performances are also a mixed bag, LaVera is one of those actresses that you either enjoy, or you find wooden so inevitably some viewers will enjoy this more than others. Curtis does a good job, but his character is poorly constructed so there’s only so much he can do. While Bill Moseley actually comes out of this pretty well, his character definitely also needed more development but he’s the clear frontrunner out of the cast who truly understands the assignment here. He adds a bit of comedy, and he has fun with the character.
The Fetus has a good concept which feels hungry for 2000s nostalgia and that B-movie enthusiasm for absurd stories, but it doesn’t quite pay off. It’s not fully embracing its ridiculous nature, it holds back a little on the violence, and the story is disappointing. It’s impossible to take a film like this seriously, which is entirely the point, so it needs to go all out, lean into the over the top nature and comedy, and unfortunately the filmmakers don’t manage to do that here, its attempts at the outlandish fall short.
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