Cynthia (2018) is reminiscent to the 1974 movie It's Alive and it's sequels.
The movie begins with a couple, Robin and Michael, trying desperately to have a baby. They are approaching 30 and have been trying for a few years, at great financial and emotional cost. Now using cheaper Asian substitute IVF and fertilisation drugs/injections the couple finally become pregnant.
A small issues leads to Robin needing a minor surgery to remove a cyst or tumour like mass, which leads to the viewer to understand that Robin is having some weird nightmares! To further complicate Robins life, she begins to think that Michael is having an affair, as Michael becomes more and more distant, coming home late.
The birth is a C-section, where a massive cyst is removed after the baby. Immediately we see whatever was within the cyst start to kill. We see through the eye of the creature, as it moves around, following Robin, Michael and their new baby Samantha home. (As the new family leaves the hospital, we here meet Bill Moseley's brilliantly bizarre cameo character, Buttercup, as a homeless transvestite).
The murder of a visitor to the home, leads to Michael confessing that he is gay and is having an affair. After throwing Michael out, Robin falls asleep. Waking to find Samantha missing, Robin follows Samantha's cries into the air conditioning ducting in the walls, where we find out what the cyst really was, a deformed child, Samantha's twin, which Robin accepts lovingly.
Just days prior to the court case to determine custody, Michael returns to their home to find it a pigsty. Dirty nappies on the floor, dishes everywhere, Michael and his partner Randy, an Australian, have come for Samantha's birthday party. We find Robin completely different to her former self. As Michael and Randy take photos to show the judge at the custody hearing they enter a baby's room, however one that is absolutely filthy. As they search the room they come across Robin's baby book, that talks of how Samantha and Cynthia have been progressing as infants. Robin locks them in, where they are attacked by Cynthia.
The ending is a bit disappointing, especially how Sid Haig's character behaves with the kids when alone, but he gets what's coming to him.
Reminiscent to movies like 'It's Alive, CHUD, and Critters', this movie succeeds because of some very bizarre scenes of violence and insanity (such as Robin's dream scenes, and the birthday party and fight in the ball pit), some terrific performances and lines of dialogue delivered perfectly by Randy (James WIlliam O'Halloran), Michael (Kyle Jones), Detective Edwards (Sid Haig), Robin's sister Jane (Rebecca Marshall), and Buttercup (Bill Moseley), and the understated performance of Scout Taylor-Compton and her transformation from devoted spouse and mother to be, to a single mother of 2 who'd do anything to protect her children.
Fans of horror comedies will enjoy this movie, just remember this is not a traditional horror movie, rather a call back to the VHS days of cheap horror movies as silly escapism.
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