Content warning: lots of goo. (Photo: Supplied)<\/p>\n
When Mary heads to the late night chemist for the ECP, she faces invasive questions about her weight by the pharmacist (a crazy cameo from Sir Ian Mune). The next day, her mum gently suggests she might have been \u201casking for it\u201d. By the time she\u2019s seeing the hapless GP played by Jonny Brugh, who doesn\u2019t listen to any of her concerns and instead offers his congratulations, the message is about as subtle as breast milk squirted directly into one\u2019s eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking of Brugh and Mune, it\u2019s also worth mentioning that Alien Pregnant has one of the most impressive comedy casts in ages. Lynch and Green make a perfect unlikely pair, her unbridled rage offset by his constant trembling, and their mothers are similarly well-matched. Parsons\u2019 free-spirited Cynthia wears her heart on her sleeve (often with at least one bare breast on display), whereas Jackie van Beek\u2019s pedantic Ann could not be more buttoned-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yvette Parsons and Jackie van Beek in Mum, I\u2019m Alien Pregnant. (Photo: Supplied)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a distinctly New Zealand sensibility about the understated writing paired with some of the most outrageous set-pieces you can imagine. When a paramedic played by Angella Dravid arrives to find Mary near-drowned in Powerade-blue vomit, she simply says \u201cit\u2019s a bit intense in here, eh.\u201d There\u2019s shades of Eagle vs Shark and more than a dash of Wellington Paranormal \u2013 so much so that you\u2019ll barely blink when Karen O\u2019Leary arrives in another perfect cameo role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alien Pregnant is gross, silly, smart and ultimately kind of sweet, crashing into the zeitgeist at a time where our male politicians are blethering on about lazy mothers<\/a> and rallying against woke birthing language, all while our maternity care crumbles<\/a>. And while it is about the twisted experience of pregnancy, it is also a bold exploration of bodily autonomy and the right to choose. Or, as several characters in the film might put it: we can say \u201cyeah\u201d but we can also say \u201cnah\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Mum, I\u2019m Alien Pregnant is screening now as a part of Wh\u0101nau M\u0101rama, and is in cinemas nationwide on September 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Casey reviews the latest entry to the gooey local horror canon. Here in Aotearoa, we have a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69,73268,252827,1066,5994],"class_list":["post-565709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-film","tag-nziff","tag-pop-culture","tag-pregnancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}