Pregnancy Is the Perfect Time to Make a Horror Movie – New York Magazine

Lowe in Prevenge. Photo: Western Edge Pictures

Writer and actress Alice Lowe didnt quite know what to do when she got pregnant at the age of 37. How could she support herself as a freelancer in an industry not exactly known for its friendliness to female bodies?

Lowe, who is known in the U.K. for her roles in dark comedic fare like Sightseers, said, A few of my actress friends said to me, Dont tell anyone that youre pregnant. Just keep it quiet, because if you tell people you wont get work. And it wont just be like three months or six months, it will be like five years, because people just assume that you are busy or that youve changed beyond recognition or that you have gone into a different casting bracket or something. People just write you off.

Instead, Lowe wrote Prevenge, a blackly hilarious horror movie about a widow who goes on a murder rampage, egged on by her furious fetus. (Daughter and co-star Della Moon Synnott snoozed peacefully in a baby stroller throughout our interview, wearing a bear snowsuit with tiny ears.) The decision to direct it herself as well as starring was unexpected but liberating. I was like, why shouldnt it be me doing that instead of apologizing for my existence or for my shape or for the fact that Im pregnant? she told me. What if I just went, Yeah, Im going to do it, and do you know what, no one can stop me, and Im going to put it in peoples faces.

Prevenge opens in Los Angeles, NYC, and on demand via Shudder.com on March 24.

People sometimes talk about the baby being able hear you in utero did you ever feel weird about that?

No, not really. At the end of the day Im quite a secure happy person, but I make really dark films. I think I exorcise a lot of the darkness and the things that scare me through making those films and through my creativity. So, I dont see darkness as being a scary thing I see it as quite healthy and I see horror films as quite healthy. When I was growing up as a kid people sometimes asked me, Why are you so dark? Why is your sense of humor so sinister?

I grew up reading fairy tales where the little mermaid does die in the end and Bluebeard has cut womens heads off and has hung them in the room. I loved all those fairy tales and Im glad that my parents didnt have any censorship over what I read really or even if they were sort of like, Oh, you probably shouldnt watch that scary movie, and I was watching it in secret anyway. I kind of could read whatever I wanted.

Your character seems like shes acting out a female id, in some ways.

I hope its like a wish fulfillment kind of thing, its like catharsis; its all the stuff that you kind of think, Oh, Im not allowed to do this.

I was thinking, well, pregnancy is thought of as being a very vulnerable, weak state. What if you took all of those qualities and just went, Yeah, but lets turn it into an advantage? Really, that was what I was doing as well with making the film.

For anyone who is underrepresented in the film industry at the moment, it feels like you have to take those issues and put them up front and go, well, this is the advantage that I have, because a white male director cant do this and I can, so at least its a fresh perspective. You hope there would be a point where you dont have to make a film about the underrepresentation that you represent woman, color, age, whatever it is. But at the moment it feels like if thats the only way I can do it, then Ill take it.

Its like everything came together for you all at once in a way that it wouldnt have maybe at any other time in your life.

I suddenly was like, it doesnt matter what other people are saying. Who cares? Just do what you want to do. You know, Ive got enough experience now to know that Im not terrible at what I do. I think thats plagued me throughout my whole career. Its like, am I terrible at what I do? Its very self-sabotaging. I think women do it a lot more than men, possibly.

Really, I still say it to my sister all the time, there are some people who are really terrible at what they do, but because they dont care, they succeed because they have no self-criticism whatsoever.

Did it ever feel dangerous to be filming while you were pregnant?

Its funny, I was really healthy and especially in my second trimester I had loads of energy. People dont tell you. Its almost like youre on a high. I dont think everyone has that, but I was literally like, yes, I can do everything. Im a superwoman. Yeah, you want me to do some character comedy in the next couple of days. There you go, theres a character. Ive just written it.

I was the director, so there was no way I was going to push myself as an actress to do anything that was dangerous. We did have stunt doubles for certain bits. At the same time, I did sort of forget I was pregnant. I was leaping around and people were going, do you want to sit down? No, why? Oh yeah, Im pregnant.

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Pregnancy Is the Perfect Time to Make a Horror Movie - New York Magazine