There’s an entire horror subgenre devoted to the worst things you can imagine about pregnancy and new motherhood. Rosemary’s Baby will always top the list, but along with many variations on “devil spawn,” we’ve had changelings, freaky folklore, grim lessons in vampire and alien gestation, pint-sized monsters born out of rage, and more.
Writer-director Raymond Creamer’s Goody Goody embraces that legacy in appropriately gruesome ways. It also taps into survival horror, centering its home birth gone awry in a cabin deep in what sure feels like a haunted forest.
Goody Goody takes place almost entirely in a single setting and has just four cast members, bringing additional intimacy to a story that feels both anchored in the real world and pulled from the pages of a very dark fairy tale. Fans of the cult favorite The Love Witch will recognize Samantha Robinson as expectant mother Goody; she’s joined by Colby Hollman as Goody’s husband, Jayson; Zoe Renee as Jayson’s sister, Candace; and Colleen Foy as the couple’s capable but cautious midwife, Sarah.
The cast is across-the-board excellent, which is important because there’s a lot of emotional heavy lifting involved. This would be the case in any movie that devotes most of its 80-minute running time to a very difficult labor and delivery, but it’s amplified here by stressful elements, both natural and supernatural.
We learn in a flashback that Goody is dead-set on having Sarah as her midwife, but the feeling’s not necessarily mutual, mostly because Sarah spies some red flags right off the bat. “Don’t have a home birth in the woods” feels like reasonable advice—especially since the big day will be in the middle of the winter—but Goody is someone who insists on doing things her way.
Despite her reservations, Sarah agrees, mostly because she senses that if Goody and Jayson can’t find a midwife who’ll acquiesce to Goody’s demands, they’ll just barrel ahead on their birthing plan without one.
So there are already tensions afoot even when everything seems to be going perfectly well. There’s a portable pool set up in the living room, upbeat music is pumping, and Goody is serene and happy between contractions, wearing the special dress she’s selected for the occasion. Jayson’s there to soothe her, and Candace, who’s assisting Sarah, keeps time on Goody’s progress using a stopwatch.
The ticking clock is echoed in Goody Goody’s percussive score, and the screws begin to turn when Sarah starts to suspect something is amiss. Jayson, no doubt remembering her initial hesitation, brushes off her concerns at first—but panic rises when a blizzard rolls in, the power flickers off, and Goody’s labor starts to take a bizarre turn.
Suddenly, everyone agrees that racing to the hospital is actually the best move, but it’s hardly vindication for the increasingly anxious and terrified Sarah.
What happens next might not be a great surprise; as mentioned, Goody Goody follows the broader contours set down by the iconic Rosemary Woodhouse and her sisters. And if you’re hoping for heaps of exposition to explain Goody’s path to this point, you won’t find it beyond one seemingly inconsequential conversation early in the film. (Pay attention!) Goody’s unusual name is also never addressed, but let’s just say any Salem Witch Trial associations that come to mind probably aren’t coincidental.
The magic here comes more from Creamer’s direction—lots of close-ups, careful framing, and creative lighting—and his cast and crew. That includes the special effects artists, who deserve extra recognition for finding fresh ways to make a birth story feel agonizingly monstrous.
Goody Goody arrives on Shudder starting September 18.
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