I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies that have forged New Zealand’s particular flavor of horror comedy, but as a filthy American observer, I hope they never change so we get more movies like Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant. When I was invited to host at The Telluride Horror Show, the first movie I signed up to present was this one, even though I hadn't seen it yet. Created by the filmmaking duo known as THUNDERLIPS (Sean Wallace and Jordan Mark Windsor), the film’s synopsis reads like the Mad Libs of my dreams. “When a messy millennial underachiever accidentally gets alien-pregnant, she must overcome skeptical doctors, a useless baby-daddy, and her oversharing mum in order to survive and reclaim her life.”
In an era where movie titles are a single word or a mysterious sentence that the most annoying people you’ve ever seen on Letterboxd will spend days debating the “true meaning” of, sometimes all you want is a movie that does what it says on the tin. I wanted a movie about mums and being alien pregnant, and that’s exactly what I got. Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant is a grubby, glorious blend of extraterrestrial body horror, raunchy comedy, and an oddly touching probe into the often dysfunctional relationships between mothers and their children. Taking the familiar horror premise of pregnancy as a bodily invasion, THUNDERLIPS gives it an intergalactic kick in the womb that delivers plenty of laughs, queasy practical effects, and an occasional emotional sucker punch.
Mary (Hannah Lynch) is an unemployed, unwashed homebody whose interests include avoiding responsibility and watching tentacle porn, and she still lives at home with her inappropriately overbearing mother, Cynthia (Yvette Parsons). Their domestic arrangement is hardly the picture of health, but then Ann (Jackie van Beek), a reserved single mother whose son Boo (Arlo Green) spends most of his time barricaded in his bedroom, moves in next door. As it turns out, Boo is part alien, and he has a “weird penis.” Given Mary’s tentacle fetish, curiosity gets the better of her, and his uterus-seeking bright-blue splooge gets her, you guessed it, alien pregnant.
What follows is an escalating parade of bodily indignities. Mary’s pregnancy develops at an alarming rate, bringing with it an assortment of biological horrors that fluctuate between creations of science fiction and what actually happens when someone grows another human inside of their body. Alien pregnancy or not, Mary’s experiences with the healthcare system are equally as horrific. Her wants and needs are constantly dismissed; Boo and his “weird penis” are given more humane treatment than Mary’s inexplicable medical changes, and Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant is one of the few movies that actually acknowledges that the morning-after pill is less effective for bodies over 195 pounds (which is seldom discussed and many people learn this the hard way).
Hannah Lynch gives Mary enough stubbornness and personality to keep her from becoming a walking collection of gross-out gags. She's lazy and aimless, certainly, but she's also perfectly capable of making decisions about her own body. Her determination to retain that control gives the story a welcome backbone. Cynthia wants to support her daughter, but that doesn't mean she's particularly good at it. She's intrusive, embarrassing, and often exhausting, yet her affection for Mary is never in doubt—even if she wants her to bring the alien baby into the world while Mary doesn’t. Meanwhile, as Boo's bedroom bunker can no longer serve as a permanent solution to life's responsibilities, Ann has to figure out how to stop coddling her child to the point of infantilization and actually let him grow up. Both women are trying to do right by their children, even when their methods leave something to be desired.
Yes, Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant does exactly what it says on the tin, but it’s so much more. For as outlandish as its premise is, this movie is genuinely trying to Say Something about autonomy, sexuality, male responsibility, and parenting, all wrapped up in a gooey, goopy, farty, barfy, sophomoric squelch-fest of slime and blue slop. It’s a dryly funny, incredibly gross movie, to be sure, but the heart underneath elevates it beyond expectation and makes it one of the biggest surprises of the year. Seek it out at once… if you can stomach it.
