A young woman awakes in the woods, naked and bloodied, with no memory of the night before. She soon discovers something seems terribly wrong with her body, which suggests a very unusual pregnancy.

Conceived for the soon to be defunct Quibi streaming service, this feature-length horror drama is delivered in 11 bite-sized chunks, intended to be consumed by those with busy, active lifestyles and/or short attention spans. Covid of course has reduced the ranks of the former, and the latter have no end of other options available, so it’s not a huge surprise the service never took off.

Which is a bit of a shame because, gimmicky streaming platform aside, this is a rather good little drama. The budget is clearly on the low side, with a small cast and a reliance on implication rather than full on horror effects (most of the time) but it held my attention for the full 90 minutes. Despite watching it in one go, the regular interruptions as we come to a mini-cliffhanger every eight minutes (roughly) work in its favour. As a regular movie there probably isn’t really enough story here to justify the length, but the enforced breaks help keep the plot moving along, and each part is fairly distinct. The sequences of Emma examining her body for the latest signs of decay are perhaps a little repetitive, although I suspect a female viewer would connect much more with her plight.

Emma herself is played by AnnaSophia Robb (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Violet Beauregarde and more recently the young Carrie Bradshaw in The Carrie Diaries) who does very well conveying the horrors manifested by her pregnancy. Lacking health insurance or the cash to pay for treatment, her slacker boyfriend (Rory Culkin) takes her to the far too good to be true Dr Green, who doesn’t charge and assures her that everything is normal. Mira Sorvino as Green is wonderful as always, oozing assurance and kindness, while all the while we suspect she’s not to be trusted. We also have a small but significant appearance from Hannah Murray, Game of Thrones’ Gilly, who could well prove that Emma is not the only young woman in her situation.

It’s not clear what will happen to this and all the other content created for Quibi so, if this appeals, catch it soon before it possibly disappears for good. It won’t challenge the likes of Rosemary’s Baby or even the alien baby plot in V in the pantheon of great Pregnancy-Horrors, but it’s engaging enough that I wanted to know what happened next and has one of those “ah, of course” twists at the end which I found satisfying. It’s worth a look, if just to see an entertaining example of a format which is unlikely to be resurrected in the near future.

Verdict: A fairly thin story probably better suited to an hour-long anthology series, but with an engaging lead in Robb and some suitably icky body-horror moments. 7/10

Andy Smith