Pregnancy and childbirth can be a beautiful process for some and a nightmare of stress, hormones, and body horror for others. In this first trailer for Hulu’s False Positive, Ilana Glazer’s joy at her successful in vitro fertilisation falls apart when she begins to have complications… of the potentially infernal variety.
Although director John Lee is best known for directing comedies like Wonder Showzen, Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday, and Search Party, and Glazer is a comedian best known for Broad City, False Positive seems to be a very straightforward horror-suspense film. Here’s the trailer, followed by the official synopsis:
“After months of trying and failing to get pregnant, Lucy (Ilana Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux) finally find their dream fertility doctor in the illustrious Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). But after becoming pregnant with a healthy baby girl, Lucy begins to notice something sinister through Hindle’s gleaming charm, and she sets out to uncover the unsettling truth about him, and her own ‘birth story.’ As if getting pregnant weren’t complicated enough…”
The question remains whether Dr. Hindle has done something nefarious to Lucy, if the problem lies in Lucy’s mysterious “birth story,” or if these problems are all just in Lucy’s mind. I’d be a little worried that False Positive is just the misogynist belief “boy, pregnant women are so hormonal it’s like they’re crazy!” in horror movie form, except that the movie is co-written by Glazer herself, who I simply can’t imagine would create a movie that reinforced negative stereotypes about women in any capacity.
False Positive’s due date, as Hulu very smugly puts it, is June 25. It also stars Sophia Bush and Gretchen Mol.
Editor’s Note: An Australian home for False Positive has yet to be announced, but the likely candidates are Star on Disney+ or Stan.