Sundance review: Judy Reyes and Marin Ireland give the pregnancy horror 'birth/rebirth' its juice

by Jason Adams

Let me just stop you right here, at the start, and admit that I am going to be terribly biased in this review of writer-director Laura Moss’ horror film birth/rebirth. Why? Do I know the director? Have I played ping pong with the cinematographer? Did the boom mic operator donate a kidney to my mum? No no nothing like that – it’s just the entirely sane fact that I love love love the actress Judy Reyes with all of my being and seeing her be given a leading role in a movie is too much for me to bear, qualitatively speaking. 

Here at The Film Experience, within this safe space of actressexuals, I know I can admit this freely. But I just feel an upfront warning is due...

Because from way back with Scrubs all the way up through Claws most recently (Quiet Anne hive holla!) I have been waiting for this terrific talent to be given a movie in which she can shine, and birth/rebirth lets her do it and do it again for good measure. Blessings be unto the patient among us!

A twisted Franken fairy-tale about a mother’s love being given disastrous free rein unto the afterlife, birth/rebirth stars Reyes as the maternity nurse Celie. A single mother who struggles with how much time she’s forced to spend tending to other children when her wee beloved, the adorably precocious six-year-old Lila (A.J. Lister), is waiting at home for her every night or morning or minute she can spare in between shifts, Celie is tired. Celie is trying to sort out her shit. But she does it with a smile.

Meanwhile at the same hospital a doctor named Rose (the always delightful and underrated Marin Ireland) is attending to her patients from the opposite end of the spectrum. Basically Rose is a big old weirdo who stares at people as if they’re under a microscope – she’d rather be attending to her pet science project at home than dealing one-on-one with anybody. 

And one day these two women’s paths get pulled into an ever spiraling orbit, a strand of DNA twisting straight down to hell, by a terrible accident. Doctor Rose has something Nurse Celie needs, and vice versa, and we watch as their codependency becomes a growth, tumor-like and sentient, between them. 

I’d rather not dive into spoilers of specifics, but birth/rebirth becomes an effortless and modernized spin on the oldest science-fiction fable in the book (think “He’s alive… ALIVE!!!!” and you’ve got it) and it does so without an ounce of fat or an ounce of fear. It dives hard and headstrong into absolute awfulness, and it’s got two terrific actresses unafraid to dive in and get totally goopy with it. An absolute treat, slimy and delicious, this one. Oh and a shout-out to the wildly likeable Breeda Wool too, yet another personal fave, who shows up as a pregnant woman suddenly and terribly trapped inside circumstances well beyond her own control.  I think we've got ourselves a new pregnancy horror classic here, folks!'

birth / rebirth premiered at Sundance and will stream on Shudder in the US. No date has yet been announced.