Still / Born: A woman start to mentally unwind as someone or something takes an interest in her newborn child.
Still / Born Review
From the off, there is nothing that comes across as too original about Brandon Christensen’s Still/Born. The concept at its heart deals with the horrors of parenthood (namely motherhood) that has been mined across the horror genre (everything from Rosemary’s Baby to the Paranormal Activity films address it in someway), so if such a concept is being explored once again, you better hope it’s got some invention to go along with it. Sadly, Christensen misses the mark, with a film that has an initially promising set-up squandered by melodrama and glaring obvious genre tropes that reek of ‘been there, done that.’
Christie Burke stars as Mary who has just given birth to twins. Sadly, only one of the twins has survived, leaving Mary and her husband Jack (Jesse Moss) with new born Adam and also the grief of having lost another son. While they both attempt to adapt to their new life, Mary soon becomes convinced that they are being haunted by the spirit of their still born son. Has she lost touch with reality? Or is there really something supernatural at work?
Still / Born Review
The initial build-up to Christensen’s film reveals in the play on Mary’s psyche, with some initially very sensitive and careful attention paid to Mary’s grappling with the grief of her situation. While her husband drifts away, Mary is often seen contemplating the ‘what if’s’ of her parenthood, filling up their big empty home with memories which don’t exist. Soon enough, strange things begin to occur, mostly via an effective (if not entirely original) means of incorporating a baby monitor.
Christensen, as proven in his bump-in-the-night found footage flick Grave Encounters, is more than capable of setting up an effective jump scare, as more than proven numerous times throughout the course of the first hour. But the film soon begins to trip up on cliché after cliché, draining the film of the dread that is suitably conjured throughout the first act.
As pleasant as it is to see Michael Ironside come in as a psychiatrist to help Mary, he’s dealt a role that requires little of him except to probe obvious questions and throw doubt over Mary’s mental state. The film itself then develops into ludicrous levels of melodrama, moments which Burke herself seems to struggle with as her performance is boiled down to little more than tics and wide-eyed horror.
Still/Born ends up revelling far too much in cliché to truly standout as a worthwhile horror concerning motherhood and parenthood. As it progresses it becomes more outlandish, dumber, lacking in grounded logic. It is a shame as there is an attempt at least in the first act of the film to ground the supernatural goings on in a context of relatable and complex emotion.
Still / Born review by Andrew Gaudion, August 2017.
Still / Born is currently playing as part of the Horror Channel Frighfest 2017 programme.
