Cinematic Releases: birth/rebirth (2023) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Shudder

The debut horror film of writer-director Laura Moss birth/rebirth or Birth/Rebirth currently in theaters via Shudder and IFC Films is second to Sick of Myself and Infinity Pool as one of the most striking, disquieting and confident body horror debut films of the year.  A postmodern science-fiction infused take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with staunchly maternal themes radiating through its veins, it gradually gets under the skin with a startling amount of dramatic weight and poses as many if not more existential questions than the timeless tale that inspired it. 
 
Creeping out into theaters amid a wildfire of a cinematic landscape still reeling from the cotton candy of Barbie and the ongoing burns of Oppenheimer, this tightly lean and mean indie comes on the heels of another riff on classic horror literature The Last Voyage of the Demeter which took on a critical chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Though the Crimes of the Future inspired poster suggests a Cronenbergian exercise in clinical, invasive medical horror which this film definitely more than delivers on, birth/rebirth is a whole new breed of feminine horror that invokes fear, longing, anticipation and an unprecedented ability to make you the viewer shrivel up in your seat.

 
Dr. Rose Casper (Marin Ireland) is a hermetic misanthropic loner who prefers the company of the hospital morgue to her fellow humans, finding sexuality repulsive despite her own obsessions with artificially inseminating herself.  Meanwhile maternity nurse Celie Morales (Judy Reyes) is a single mom working tirelessly to support herself and her five-year-old daughter Lila (A.J. Lister).  

After Lila suddenly dies, the two women’s lives are catapulted upon each other when a suspicious Celie tracks the standoffish Rose down to her home and finds Lila has somehow or another been partially revived via an experimental procedure involving siphoning amniotic fluid and/or body parts from pregnant women.  Trying to actually retrieve the desired components for the experiment proves difficult but over the course of the movie Celie becomes more and more determined to see this terrible destructive path through if it means bringing her daughter back.
 
Grisly, thoroughly repellent and at times as hard to watch as anything seen in the movie theater at all this year, birth/rebirth is a bold new take on the classic Mary Shelley story with a new skin and fresh characters while staying true to the feminine essence of the legendary novelist’s tale.  Finding the right note in every scene, the film is expertly composed and crafted with precise, key cinematography by Chananun Chotrungroj, edited with a whip by Taylor Mason and radiates with dread and sorrow through Sanctuary composer Ariel Marx’s subtly mournful electronic score. 

 
Mostly though the film is commanded by the two leads, the mad scientist doctor Rose played by Hell or High Water actress Marin Ireland and Smile actress Judy Reyes who is tasked with an extraordinary amount of dramatic weight to carry.  Having to portray a medical professional who after encountering another more experienced but slightly unhinged member of the same field begins to disintegrate morally when her daughter’s survival is at stake, Reyes makes the maternal instincts of this character relatable to an audience so we find ourselves at odds when she starts to go down a darker path.
 
Genuinely horrific and at times hard as Hell, birth/rebirth currently in limited theatrical release is one of the year’s best new horror debuts brilliantly acted and directed that mixes old lore with the new in a freshly unnerving cocktail that will sear unseeable horrors into your psyche.  Expectant mothers are advised to look elsewhere while horror fans tiring of the jump scares and usual slasher thrills are bound to get one of the most uncomfortable horror films of its ilk since David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. 

 
The kind of film that could only emerge now with renewed interest in body horror including but not limited to Brandon Cronenberg’s hyperkinetic shocker Infinity Pool, birth/rebirth for all of its transgressions is perhaps most shocking of all for being so nuanced, sensitive and perceptive as to what’s driving the abdominal/spinal/gynecological horrors being unleashed onscreen.  Despite offering up some pretty repellent fare, its the drive and conviction of the human heart that ultimately proves most compellingly disturbing.

--Andrew Kotwicki