By Simon Thompson
Director/Co-writer Cyrus Neshvad’s Child is an atmospheric horror-survival drama that leaves you feeling unsettled throughout. This is a movie which goes in for the slow burn approach rather than fun fair haunted house style jump scares – and is all the better for it.
Greg ( Malik Zidi) is a doctor, struggling to come to terms with his son Leo (Leo Tedesco) being comatose. To make matters even more dire, Greg is responsible for the accident that left Leo in this state in the first place, causing him to become estranged from his wife Anne (Brigitte Urhausen).
Since Leo is in dire need of an organ transplant, Greg bribes his brother – in- law and the hospital director Frederic (Jules Werner) into bumping up Leo’s name to the top of the donor list. It turns out however, that what Greg and Anne have actually paid for is far from being legitimate or ethical, as their fee has gone to a militia of illegal organ harvesters operating in a Resident Evil 4 like central European backwater. This leaves Greg and Anne in a desperate ethical quandary where they are torn between stopping the militia or tacitly accepting their actions to save Leo’s life.
Child is stunning to look at, Cyrus Neshvad as a director uses a mixture of dark colours and shadow that go a long way in creating the movie’s distinctive mood. From the cold and clinical internal locations such as the hospital where the start of the film takes place, to the darkness of the woods where the second and third acts take place, Cyrus’s direction helps to make each location memorable.
While the script by Neshvad and Guillaume Levil does keep you engaged, there are a few plot holes scattered around the narrative that while not too egregiously stupid or far-fetched, did slightly break my sense of immersion but not to a deal breaking extent.
Malik Zidi and Brigitte Urhausen are both fantastic in their respective parts, with their on screen chemistry being so strong that you can completely buy them having been a married couple. Urhausen in particular conveys a palpable sense of anguish as Anne, that gives the movie a strong emotional foundation.
Overall despite some slight inconsistences here and there narratively- owing to the film’s shorter than average runtime ( an hour and seventeen minutes) Child is a horror movie which offers you something different from the norm, which is a quality that should always be commended. If you’re looking for a more contemplative and experimental style of horror then Child might just be the movie for you.
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