Like virtually every entry in the "from hell" genre, the film ends up affirming that "The family that kills together stays together" (as Pauline Kael put it, reviewing genre progenitor Fatal Attraction). The circumstances under which Anna's water breaks are probably enough to guarantee the film a future place in Lifetime's rotation of minor camp classics about domestic peril. While its middle section stretches long, When the Bough Breaks shows an admirable willingness to "go there" when it's time to unleash hell. Most of the film takes place in the Taylors' home, and director Jon Cassar, a veteran of TV's "24," uses its billowy curtains and shadows to create a moody atmosphere of suspicion and voyeurism. Chestnut does his best to suggest some inner conflict while fending off her advances, but his character remains on the drawing board.
The script by Jack Olsen gives full moral authority to John and Laura, who are nice people but not fleshed-out characters, despite vague hints that they've had to "work on" their marriage.Īll the best scenes belong to Sinclair equally convincing as a mousy waif and a diabolical vamp, she struts around the house in dishabille, leering suggestively at John, and ends up walking away with the film. The film raises questions about the ethical and legal issues involved in surrogacy - does the woman carrying the child have any say in its future? - only to toss them aside once it's clear she's off the rails. Will the infernal antagonist have plausible motivations, perhaps even a legitimate grievance? Or will she be simply a class-A sociopathic bee-yotch, the kind who likes to torment an older, richer rival by stealing her clothes and looking great in them?Īnna is basically the latter. The fun of such movies is in seeing how the hellishness will reveal itself.
And of course - I don't think I'm spoiling much here - Anna turns out to come straight from hell. Of course they welcome her into their home when she seeks refuge from an abusive boyfriend (Theo Rossi). So, of course the Taylors choose her as the receptacle of their precious last embryo. Young Anna (Jaz Sinclair) has meek posture, dewy eyes and a shy smile that oozes sincere desire to help the infertile couple. The only thing they lack is a baby, so they seek out a surrogate. Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall play John and Laura Taylor, an early-forties New Orleans couple with a ravishing restored home and glamorous jobs (lawyer, high-end chef). But they make a brief theatrical comeback with When the Bough Breaks, an enjoyable camp fest best described as "the surrogate from hell." Reproductive technology may have advanced since the '90s, but the formula of these films hasn't changed a bit.
Such films haven't been seen much since the Clinton administration, except on Lifetime. Bunnies were boiled, innocents were terrorized and lessons were learned about the general scariness of the less fortunate.
The protagonists were always attractive yuppies, living the dream until they made the mistake of trusting a psychopath who had designs on their goodies.
All their plots could be reduced to a single pungent phrase: "the roommate from hell" ( Single White Female), "the tenant from hell" ( Pacific Heights), "the nanny from hell" ( The Hand That Rocks the Cradle). In the 1990s, moviegoers flocked to a string of glossy thrillers that one critic of the era memorably dubbed the "from hell" genre.