Antibirth

Lovers of horror will likely be into this fertile homage and will appreciate Perez's new takes on horror's tried-and-true tropes and plot twists.

Watching Lyonne smoke and drink the trimesters away reminds one just how much her absence from the big screen has been missed. She's pretty much the whole show until the arrival of Meg Tilly whose performance...ranks as one of the year's finest.

As a portrait of a middle America full of forgotten people and ruined civilizations, this is one of the year's scariest movies.

Like its wastoid heroine, "Antibirth" is a mess - but an interesting one.

It's very easy to be turned off by Perez's feature debut, but if you can get on its wavelength, you'll find yourself drawn in by one of the year's most original horror films.

[A] trauma that only people who have experienced it can truly comprehend.

With its garish colour palette and sugar-high energy level, Antibirth sometimes resembles a cinematic glass of Kool-Aid. But successful films, unlike powdered drink mixes, require more than just throwing a few ingredients together.

Horror movies are all about tone, and Antibirth has one I'm not sure I've ever encountered before.

It's a scrappy debut with a standout performance from Lyonne, who manages to be sympathetic even while she drinks her way into further circles of hell, and a terrific return to form for Meg Tilly as well.

What keeps our attention is Lyonne's fierce performance as the bong-smoking, booze-swilling woman dealing with an alien invasion going on inside her body.

Dementedly creepy punk body-horror grossout comedy plays like a padded-out short. But Natasha Lyonne and Chloë Sevigny have a ball as cheerful wastrels.

The answers are far more appealing than the questions.