Reviews
‘Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant’ Sundance Review – A Charming Body Horror Comedy
As if to prove that body horror is in fashion, Sundance 2026’s Midnight lineup features not one but two films that find new ways for the human body to repulse. Whereas Saccharine lambasted diet culture with a personal touch, New Zealand horror comedy Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant instead wields an extraterrestrial pregnancy for body horror laughs in a sweet tale of millennial malaise.
Mary (Hannah Lynch) is a perfect depiction of a millennial underachiever who prefers to spend her days on the couch watching tentacle hentai and still lives with her overly supportive, enabling mum, Cynthia (Yvette Parsons). Mum is so supportive that she nudges her unambitious daughter to seek out the new neighbor she’s heard has a deformed penis. When Mary awkwardly meets the new neighbor, Boo (Arlo Green), a clumsy double masterbation act involving his tentacled junk instead leads to projectile ejaculation that gets Mary alien pregnant.
That insane sentence sums up the cheeky type of horror-comedy that directors Sean Wallace and Jordan Mark Windsor, aka filmmaking duo THUNDERLIPS, have in store, a strange blend of mumblecore slacker comedy and gross-out body horror filled with tentacles, an excess of goo, and alien penises.
Dry humor and deprecating wit contrast and highlight the absurd in this feature debut. While you can expect to get well acquainted with the squirmy, tentacled “deformed penis,” Wallace and Windsor keep things grounded and relatable with the focus on Mary and her relationships with mum and Boo. Boo proves more antisocial than Mary, while Cynthia struggles with her daughter’s choice of whether to keep it. It’s through their arguments over the pregnancy and general life direction that expose the heart of this wacky comedy, with insights into the physical and emotional toll pregnancy takes on a body.
While that yields plenty of body fluid spewing and weird pregnancy side effects, Mum bides its time getting to the full body horror goods until the climax. Until then, we’re left with an alien penis and plenty of thick, mucousy goo to get us by as the film settles into a funny mumblecore rhythm.
Even then, the wild finale still feels like a bit of a succinct punchline rather than the main event. Not helping is that Mum‘s musings on the horrors of pregnancy aren’t all that deep or new, especially amidst the current body horror wave.
Where THUNDERLIPS’ feature debut finds novel ground is in its cast and charming wit. Flawed yet lovable characters worm their way into your heart, especially as their relationships deepen and maturity ensues. There’s a thoughtfulness and honesty to its explorations of unwanted pregnancy, and even more so when it comes to its protagonist. Mary is initially abrasive, but it doesn’t take long to understand why.
While Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant isn’t novel in its concept, its execution makes for a charmer. Lynch is a fiery lead, and Mary’s journey is ultimately satisfying. It’s more conversational than full-blown body horror insanity, but the filmmakers ensure that there’s no shortage of gross-out gags, birthing pods, horny tentacles, and bodily fluids to showcase just how gnarly pregnancy really is.
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant received its world premiere at Sundance and is currently seeking distrubution.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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