Film

Prevenge

Prevenge is a wickedly strange British horror-comedy about a pregnant woman convinced her unborn child is commanding her to kill. It's tonal whiplash—graphic violence cuts to gallows humour, tenderness to monstrosity—and it demands a viewer willing to sit with uncomfortable contradictions. For those who loved the queasy genre-mixing of early Lynchian work or films that treat pregnancy as genuinely uncanny rather than sacred.

TMDb rating2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy black comedy that stays deadpan while the violence escalates, and you find pregnancy horror more interesting when it is sharp, funny and a little unsettling about the body.

Skip it if you need your dark comedy to commit to heart-on-sleeve emotion, since its grief is kept at arm's length and its jokes can feel abrupt against the bleakness.

What it asks of you: Brisk at 89 minutes and built from short, scene-by-scene episodes, it asks for attention to tone more than plot, with mood swinging sharply from scene to scene.

If you liked this

Tusk2014

Kevin Smith's grotesque body horror about identity and obsession. It's repulsive and darkly funny in nearly equal measure, unafraid to linger in discomfort while keeping you off-balance tonally.

But The central premise involves a horrifying surgical transformation. If graphic mutilation or prolonged weirdness without catharsis bothers you, this will test your patience.

Tusk poster

Raw2017

A French-Belgian film about a vegetarian girl's sudden hunger for human flesh. Gorgeously shot, genuinely disturbing, and uses body horror as a metaphor for awakening sexuality with real depth.

But It's deliberately slow and bleak. Gore is intimate and not glamorized, which can feel more invasive than spectacular violence.

Raw poster

The Babadook2014

Australian horror about grief and motherhood where the monster is inseparable from psychological breakdown. Tense, inventive, and emotionally devastating without cheap sentiment.

But The child character is deliberately annoying—that's the point, but it wears. The pacing is patient to the point of slow-burn exhaustion for some viewers.

The Babadook poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Prevenge

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Tragedy of Macbeth2021

Both are about what an unborn or supernatural voice demands of a person, and the guilt that follows acting on it. Both trust their audience to sit with contradiction—darkly comic, genuinely horrifying, utterly serious.

Joel Coen's solo film: a stark, geometrical adaptation of Shakespeare where ambition and guilt become physical compulsions. It's Macbeth as psychological horror, all angles and shadow. Denzel Washington as a man unmade by prophecy.

But It's theatrical and stagy in ways designed to unsettle. If you need naturalism or camera movement, this formal severity will feel cold. The monologues are substantial.

The Tragedy of Macbeth poster
More like this (7)

Teeth2008

Body horror comedy about a girl discovering she has teeth in her vagina. Exploitative premise handled with genuine wit and rage about bodily autonomy. Funny, furious, and properly transgressive.

But The sexual violence it addresses is graphic. Some will find the tonal mixing of trauma and comedy glib rather than cathartic.

Teeth poster

Under the Skin2014

Scarlett Johansson in a science-fiction horror that's deliberately opaque and hypnotic. Strange, sensual, terrifying in what it withholds. A film that trusts you to sit with unease.

But Plot is minimal and interpreted. It's austere and slow, more installation art than story. Viewers needing narrative clarity will find it infuriating.

Under the Skin poster

Come True2020

A sleep-study horror film with an unsettling synth score and body-modification body horror. Visually distinctive and deeply strange, building dread through sound design and practical effects.

But It's obscure for a reason—narrative clarity takes a back seat to atmosphere. The ending won't satisfy anyone wanting conventional resolution.

Come True poster

The Lighthouse2019

Two men isolated in a lighthouse descend into madness and codependency. Shot in black-and-white, formally audacious, funny in its grotesqueness. A masterclass in sustained unease and dark comedy.

But It's claustrophobic and deliberately mannered. The accent, the dialogue, the pacing—all designed to aggravate. Not a casual watch.

The Lighthouse poster

A Dark Song2016

An Irish occult drama about grief, prayer, and the possibility of redemption. Strange and meditative, it treats the supernatural with real spiritual weight rather than genre mechanics.

But Almost no plot in the conventional sense. It requires patience and openness to mood over incident. Easy to mistake slowness for emptiness.

A Dark Song poster

Eraserhead1977

Both weaponize pregnancy and parenthood as horror. Both find the uncanny in the domestic. Both refuse to make the viewer comfortable, instead insisting that extreme discomfort is the honest emotional register for certain truths.

David Lynch's feature debut: a nightmare about fatherhood, responsibility, and bodily autonomy rendered in grainy black-and-white. Industrial, grotesque, and hypnotic. The sound design alone is worth the price of entry.

But Narrative is abandoned almost entirely. It's visceral and strange in ways that demand surrender rather than understanding. Some find it impenetrable; many find it unbearable.

Eraserhead poster

In Fabric2018

Both are British horror-comedies that refuse the divide between funny and horrifying. Both feature a central female character trapped by forces beyond her control that everyone assumes she should accept. Both find the absurd in the macabre.

Peter Strickland's horror-comedy about a red dress that ruins the lives of everyone who wears it. Giallo-inflected, deadpan, genuinely witty. A film that treats objects as sinister and finds dark humour in narrative inevitability.

But It's deliberately silly at points in ways that undercut genuine dread. The pacing is arch and obtuse. It requires an appetite for the formally weird and willing suspension of genre expectation.

In Fabric poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by