Like Barbie—although, let me hasten to add, not a lot like Barbie—the new neo-monster movie Birth/Rebirth has been created in the shape of one woman's arresting vision. Unlike Barbie auteur Greta Gerwig, though, Laura Moss, who directed this film, is only making her first feature. And she's a natural, drenching the picture with darkness and dread, and spiking it with jolts of bloody body horror. There's not a lot of pink in this movie, but there's plenty of red.
The story, which pokes around in the area of Frankenstein, is the work of Moss and Brendan J. O'Brien, a longtime movie tech specialist (he spent years as a boom operator), and it affords its stars, Marin Ireland (Hell or High Water) and Judy Reyes (Smile), an opportunity—which they seize—to deliver uncommonly intense performances.
