Delayed Reaction: False Positive

Premise: A woman suspects that something isn't right with her pregnancy and her husband and doctor are in collusion about it.

 

This is an elemental horror concept. Perhaps pregnancy isn't that familiar to me in a lot of ways, but I can relate to enough of the idea of something growing inside me that could be good or could be bad. I'm more familiar with the abstracts like the feeling that your body is not your own. There are some horror movie ideas that do all their work with the pitch. Teeth is a good example. Or Humana Centipede. Those cause shudders just as ideas.

Most of the work in False Positive is done just by knowing what kind of movie it is. In that way, it is effective. In most other ways, not so much. It doesn't help that it's so easy to compare it to Rosemary's Baby. False Positive does attempt to thrown in a little body horror and hallucinations to shake things up, but it's not enough. The movie is exactly what I expected it would be from beginning to end. That's a shame because there was a lot of room to do something truly wild.

 

I mean, the cast is great. Ilana Glazer shifts into a serious role nicely after mostly being known for comedies*. Per The Leftovers, Justin Theroux fits well in circumstances where the connection to reality is tenuous. I really enjoy older Pierce Brosnan. He's still so handsome, but he wears his age. He looks like an old James Bond more than other former Bonds. In a way, this movie needs the doctor to be played by someone who used to look so good in a suit. He's not a mad scientist in the traditional sense. He's a man who for his entire life has gotten away with things because he's so handsome. He's the most essential casting in the movie, even though it doesn't know how to use him a lot of the time.

 

*Let me be very superficial for a second. Ilana Glazer doesn't look right with straightened hair. She has great, crazy hair. Even when it's straightened in this, it's like it's fighting to be curly again. And maybe that's a purposeful choice in the movie. Perhaps the hairstyling is making a point, but it sure was distracting to me the whole time.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend