Antibirth is by no means a godsend, but it doesn’t want to be one either. It’s weird, wacky, perverse, vile, nasty as hell, and wears its ugliness with a badge of honor. That only makes it stronger. This is a body horror flick with fire in its belly and a demonic appetite for destruction. It’s ultimately a devil of a good time: http://www.cutprintfilm.com/reviews/fantasia-2016-antibirth/
shareI was at the Fantasia screening, too. This review is quite charitable. I wouldn't have given this a passing grade.
This felt less Cronenberg than it did a wannabe Gregg Araki film. In fact, much of it reminded me of Araki's "Nowhere" (1997), with its mash-up of youthful excess and metaphorical alien annihilation.
Absolutely love Natasha Lyonne and Chloe Sevigny, but the script was too terrible for even the most talented actors to carry this film. It was far too repetitive to be the wild and unpredictable ride it so desperately wanted to be. Easily it's greatest flaw was the fact that it wasn't funny and it really needed to be. There were a couple of laughs sprinkled over its running time, but most of the time it was the same joke (funny voice following bong hit, constant references to the excess of Lou, etc.). After about 15 minutes of film you saw everything you were going to see. For the next 80 minutes you were going to suffer through endless (tiresome) repetition of the same images.
Curiously, the relevance of Sevigny's character drops off after about 25 minutes and you almost forget she is in the movie. Other than watching Lyonne do drugs, very little happens except for the occasional flashback or hallucination (which are visually uninspired and add nothing to the tension of the film) which help pad out the film to feature length. Given how little material there was at its core, this really would have worked better as a short film. At first Meg Tilly's character showed promise, but all hope for this collapsed when she was given more dialogue, all of which was predictably boring exposition about how she was abducted.
Some good songs on the soundtrack couldn't save it, either. The way they were slapped into the film felt very amateurish, first-time indie filmmaker self-indulgence: "Hey everybody, check out my cool record collection! I dig the Gories, Suicide, Dead Moon and Black Dice! If you missed how cool my record collection is I put up posters for the bands in almost every frame!" I wanted to enjoy this movie but it really didn't even come across as the film that it wanted to be.
the roman empire never died, it just turned into the catholic church
LOL what movie did you see, is there a different cut?
shareFor me the vile\nasty part was Natasha's character not changing or showering! Combine that with the lousy diet, constant drinking and smoking and boy she must have reeked!
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Agreed. The onscreen talent outweighed the script.
Natasha played Lou to perfection; her personal deterioration and her seemingly "Oh well have another drink" attitude about it at first was spot on. Only when she got the disfiguring huge bump did she seem to take notice and then become angry.
Also when the full body of the "baby" emerged and she deflated I felt it was symbolic of a drug addict\alcoholic destroying themselves and becoming a "creature version" of who they were.
Chloe was great as the best friend\duplicitous accomplice. Hard to image she is 42! She looks about 20.
And nice to see Meg Tilly. Always liked her in the films she made in the 80's. Great job as the forever messed up former military lab rat.
Possible Spoiler....
I thought the movie was hilarious, Lyonne was just so trashy, when she wrapped her puss filled foot up with the toilet paper, i almost wet myself, there were a lot of unintenional?(im assuming) funny parts.
"Sometimes being a bitch is all a gal has to hang onto"
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