Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Ross Partridge
Written by Patch Darragh and Erin Gann
Birthrite is a slow-burning American Folk Horror tale of a pregnant woman who inherits a New England home with a hidden occult legacy. She and her girlfriend struggle to start a family with the specter of a curse hanging over them. Birthrite had its world premiere showing at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival 2024.
Witches and babies belong together like Reese’s Peanutbutter Cups. To extend the metaphor, New England and witches are like the Halloween bowl full of Reeses. These are natural pairings. Curses, pregnancy, antlered cults, old tomes, and nosy neighbors are joined together in a powerful brew.
Pregnancy horror gets its power, not just from maternal love, but also from the sheer difficulty of carrying a baby to term. The nine-month devotion is a physical, emotional, and spiritual commitment. Birthrite taps into all of these aspects of the theme. To make it even more complicated, this involves a lesbian couple, so the sheer act of getting pregnant is not as easy as it is for a heterosexual couple. The sheer act of conception is a challenge too.
Now, add to that mix, a group of mysterious cultists who are looking to claim the baby, and you have the makings of something truly dreadful. Birthrite (note the spelling) manages to reveal its cards slowly, building tension with every scene. The townies are all slightly off, and discovering who can be trusted and who is wicked is central to the mystery of the cult. As soon as you gain some trust with some of the locals, awful things happen. For a production crew that is reasonably new at this, they clearly understood how to craft a folk horror story.
The Cast of Birthrite
- Alice Kremelberg plays Wren Collins, a pregnant woman who has inherited a forested estate in New England, that belonged to her aunt who died from mysterious circumstances. Alice is a piano instructor and she is taking on a number of the local townsfolk as students.
- Juani Feliz plays Maya Lopez, Wren’s fiancee, who has joined her in a retreat from the city to start a new life. Maya is the stable one in the relationship.
- Jennifer Lafleur plays Rosalie, a midwife who assists Wren with her upcoming pregnancy. Rosalie knew Wren’s mother and Aunt, who grew up in this town.
- Michael Chernus plays Paul, a hunter who befriends Maya and understands much of the town’s history.
- Owen Campbell plays Quentin, the young town librarian and one of Wren’s piano students. He knows about the local cult legacy and has the books to prove it.
- Henny Russell plays Carolyn, a distressed town eccentric who trespasses on Wren and Maya’s property.
- Elsa Parent plays “Little Girl”, who tricks Wren into letting her into the house, where she leaves strange tokens of hair and twigs.
A Brief Summary of Birthrite:
The mysterious death of Aunt Birdie has brought Wren and Maya from the big city to start a new life in a small town (Brookfield, Mass) and to raise a family. The house is fully furnished with a grand piano, which is quite handy for a piano instructor. Wren and Maya meet with Rosalie, a local midwife who took over a midwife clinic from Birdie. Despite Maya’s reluctance, Wren entrusts Rosalie with the care of her pregnancy.
We follow their lives, which seem quite idyllic, as the months go by and Wren’s pregnancy develops. Wren and Maya discover that a baby boy is due, and they cherish the ultrasound image of the fetus. This tranquil life is interrupted when a little girl arrives for piano lessons but is not who she seems. Wren discovers something is amiss, but the girl disappears into the woods, leaving behind a token of hair and twigs as a “gift”. (Apparently, Wren had not seen The Blair Witch Project, and should have known better than to leave such a witchy token in her house.)
Soon afterwards Wren wakes to the sound of the little girl coming back into the house. Wren pursues the girl into the forest, where Wren is captured for a ritual involving a baby carriage and hooded figures with antlers. She blacks out and awakens abruptly back in bed with Maya, convinced she had a nightmare. This becomes a waking nightmare when she suffers what appears to be a miscarriage, bleeding profusely from her womb. When the doctor comes to Maya to bring her the bad news, he informs Maya that there was no baby, and therefore no miscarriage.
Maya and Wren struggle mightily with this knowledge. Wren slips into madness. She is convinced that she is burdened with a curse that claimed her parents and her aunt. We learn that bad tidings have followed Wren around for her entire life. A multitude of locals allow them to piece the puzzle together, including Rosalie, Quentin, Paul, and the erratic Carolyn. However, it’s still an incomplete puzzle. When Wren and Maya decide to try having a baby again, the cult gets more aggressive putting the whole town at risk.
EVALUATION OF BIRTHRITE:
The atmosphere and mood built this movie. Perhaps you may not recognize the on-screen talent, but it is a very accomplished ensemble with terrific credits for all the main players. A tip of the cap to the casting director.
Alice Kremlenberg carries this film. The Emmy nominee (for The Feels) gives a fully fleshed-out performance. When reality slips for her, she emotes that wonderfully. In her happier times, she carries the glow of a mother-to-be. The chemistry between Kremlenberg and Feliz really works. There is authenticity, fragility, and toughness when needed. I particularly liked how Feliz portrayed Maya’s frustration and anger, a subtle performance that convinced me thoroughly. Jennifer Lafleur’s enigmatic take on Rosalie was essential in making her the foil for the couple. Her intentions remain elusive for the bulk of the movie, and that tension is essential for this film.
Technically, the film had some beautiful stylings. For establishing shots, Partridge utilized tilt shift drone shot imagery. The stark depth of field perspectives created a dollhouse-like uncanny valley but in the right way. It establishes the beauty of the town but provides a hint of surrealism that makes the town feel just a little bit off, even though the images are the real thing.
The film’s pacing does lag a bit at times. There are a few characters who have somewhat redundant roles, and that pads the run time a bit as there are multiple characters who contribute clues. The deaths of some of the supporting crew also don’t land with the impact that it should have on our lead characters. The horror-filled ending of the movie, though, is TOP SHELF. I hope you don’t mind an ambiguous ending!
CONCLUSION
This is Ross Partridge’s second feature film. For Patch Darragh and Erin Gann, this is their first credited screenplay. All three of them came from acting to go behind the camera and into the writing room. They crafted a finely tuned piece of folk horror. The interlacing of the pregnancy theme, with madness, and witchcraft felt just right. This movie appeals to fans of films like Kill List, The Wicker Man, The Witch, and Mephisto Waltz. This is a movie for fans who enjoy the subtleties of the horror genre.
There is enough gore and wickedness for this to earn an R Rating, and it is certainly not a film made for younger audiences. An adult audience will empathize with Birthrite much more than a teen audience. Sometimes, you just have to go through some adulting to understand.
Birthrite had its world premiere at Popcorn Frights 2024, so it will be on the film festival circuit for a while, I assume. Fall On Your Sword Productions has not released a trailer yet. The movie will likely be released sometime next year. Once we get word about a streaming or theatrical release, The Scariest Things will let you know.
Review by Eric Li
