Spoilers for Prevenge abound further down
I went to Sheffield's bestest indie
cinema the Showroom to watch Alice Lowe's debut feature Prevenge last
night. I don't want this to be a review as such, but suffice it to
say it's gory, bleakly hilarious and shot through with surprising
melancholy. Lowe, who wrote, directed and acts the shit out it has
crafted a great film which is destined for cult classic status. I'll
give it a 9/10
This was a preview and there was a Q&A
with Lowe afterwards. A couple of things she said got me thinking
about the type of horror films I tend to love (if Prevenge can
strictly speaking be called a horror film, which I think it can. Lowe
said she was influenced by horror films so yeah, I'm going with
horror film).
Lowe mentioned that she deliberately
added an emotional and psychological element to the horror and the
comedy, feeling that comedy-horror had been a pretty well-mined seam
since Sean of the Dead. She's certainly succeeded. Spoilers from
here on in.
The main character Ruth is heavily
pregnant, lonely and grieving. Her partner died in a climbing
accident a few months ago and she is driven to kill the others from
the party who she holds responsible for his death. Many horror films
have a psychological element of course, but I think it is the
emotional depths which elevate Prevenge. Some scenes are genuinely
heartbreaking, such as when Ruth presses up against the wall of her
bedroom beyond which her neighbours are having noisy, energetic sex.
Though she found it annoying earlier by this point in the film she is
so desperate for any human contact which doesn't involve a midwife or
murdering someone she wants to get as close as possible.
There are few horror films which go
for emotions other than, y'know, fear (or revulsion). Even some of my
favourites are a bit lacking in this area. As much as I love It
Follows, it's mostly down to the puzzle it creates, how the concept
is used for symbolic depth and how amazingly put together it is as a
film. Same with Kairo, which I admire as a formal exercise in
masterful atmosphere and genuine inventiveness. The Exorcist is a
great film about religion, again beautifully crafted, but little in
the way of emotional investment.
I've tried to think of horror films I
love which have the same emotional depth as Prevenge. I reckon The
Babadook counts, though it feels lazy to say it what with it also
having a female writer/director. It's also a film about grief and
motherhood, though these themes are much more to the fore in Jennifer
Kent's film. The emotional investment comes from the relationship
between Amelia and Samuel. The Witch may also count, where the
disintegration of family is one of the keystones of the film.
Speaking of The Witch, when I wrote
about that (sorta) recently I mentioned how one of the things I like
about it is the lack of ambiguity. One of the things I like about
Prevenge is the ambiguity. Again, this is something Lowe touched on
in her Q&A. She says that she was very much thinking about
“likeability” when she was writing the film, and how lead female
characters are supposed to be likeable.
Ruth can switch being sympathetic and
unsympathetic throughout the film, often in the course of a single
scene. After committing probably the most wince inducing murder in
the film (if you own a pair of testicles it is anyway), she
immediately starts taking care of her victim's elderly, senile
relative, doing the washing and putting her to bed. It's incredibly
sweet, which makes it even more unnerving after the horrible act
she's just committed. Even the biggest dickheads among her targets
have their moments that serve to show they're just normal human
beings.
Ruth is of course extremely mentally
unwell. Her unborn child is not talking to her demanding that she go
on a murder splurge. Grief, loneliness and the surreal horror of
being pregnant have made her crazy (though Lowe lays in some hints
that Ruth was perhaps a bit “interesting” before any of this
happened). The ambiguity I'm getting a bit tired of (as talked about
in the The Witch entry) is the whole “is it supernatural or all in
their heads” thing. The ambiguity in Prevenge is about whether Ruth
is the protagonist or antagonist in her own story.
So what do these suggest to me about
the horror films I like? As much as I love a well made splatter fest
or jump scare factory I do appreciate a bit more depth in my
favourite genre. Alice Lowe has shown that she is more than capable
of bringing that depth. I can't wait for to see what she does next.
