Rosemary’s Baby for “___” is a spicy logline. I’m coming out of Fantasia where I consumed a few movies that might fit that bill (Nightborn coming in hot as a “Rosemary’s Baby for elder millennials,” Home Bodies making me consider “Rosemary’s Baby as liminal science fiction”). And that’s just this year. There’s a reason the story of a cursed child resonates and continues to bleed through horror canon, something similar to how a year can barely lapse without a Frankenstein adaptation. Pregnancy and birth are brilliant miracles that are also monstrous and parasitic, a balance Houston Bone plays with in his tale of a woman as a reluctant vessel.

Son of Sara follows Sara’s (Chloe Van Landschoot) experience with an unexpected pregnancy resulting from a quick tryst with a blonde guy named Troy (Garrett Hnatiuk as the guy you warn your friends about). She’s living in only mild discomfort with her girlfriend, Carol (Tymika Tafari, a petite yet commanding presence) struggling with the pain of pregnancy, haunting visions, and an insatiable hunger. When she bumps into Troy, her curiosity is sparked, and she takes an ill-advised journey to the farmhouse he shares with his witchy mother (Jane Moffat, tantalizing as Agnes). Things feel immediately odd – odder than sharing a meal with your one-night-stand-baby-daddy’s mom while regaling her with stories of your current partner –when Agnes and Troy seem to be setting Sara up for a ritualistic birth.

The early part of the film is simply a setup for the drawn-out torment of the pregnant mother. Hnatiuk and Moffat get to ham it up while we watch Sara struggle with weakness, eventually preparing themselves for their big moment as the catchers of a tainted fetus. The two bring such a berserk and balanced tone of comedy, sexiness, and terror to their eccentric characters which fills up the long ritual scenes with something delicious to eat. Van Landschoot’s physical performance portrays the fear and pain of an unflappable newly minted matriarch in a way that makes their stand off more delectable. Scares and gore prop up the aforementioned tonal balance and set up a hero moment of Carol that left the audience cheering.

Bone didn’t just pilot a cast through a hammy tale of a grotesque birth, he set up his take on the famous horror story, a queer one with a new take on how women fit into it. The relationship between the couple, Sara and Carol, is what keeps them both safe in a story where the pregnant woman is traditionally manipulated and exploited. The dynamic changes when the two women are preparing to be parents and are upended by the appearance of the man who had otherwise just been a seed. Son of Sara isn’t explicitly spending time on testing themes, but it doesn’t have to. It’s presenting a modern telling of this sort of story that allows the viewer to pull from it how these new dynamics might change things. And that horror classic does not appear to be his only inspiration, nods appearing from Japanese horror, slashers, and probably more that even a keen horror eye might miss.

Son of Sara is a spectacle of a monstrous childbirth wrapped in a story about love, care, and following your instincts. Elevated by powerful performances and drenched in burgundy blood and a good amount of bites, it’s a goopy fun romp that’ll have the audience gagging and gagged.