Alice Kremelberg, Birthrite, Callie Beaulieu, Elsa Parent, horror, Jennifer Lafleur, Juani Feliz, Kale Browne, LGBTQ, Michael Chernus, movies, reviews, Ross Partridge
August 16, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Ross Partridge
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Birthrite” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two Latinas) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A lesbian couple, who have been trying to start a family together, move to a house inherited from the mysterious aunt of one of the women, and they find out that the aunt had sinister secrets.
Culture Audience: “Birthrite” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching boring horror movies that don’t have a good story.
The slow-paced and cliché-ridden horror movie “Birthrite” fails to create much suspense when the answer to the mystery is revealed too early in this drab story. It’s about a sinister fertility clinic, witchcraft, and a couple trying to have a baby. The characters in the movie are’t very interesting. And the story is muddled and disjointed.
Directed by Ross Partridge, “Birthrite” was written by Patch Darragh and Erin Gann. The movie takes place in an unnamed U.S. city. “Birthrite” was actually filmed in Massachusetts. It’s yet another horror movie where the people who are targets of terror live in a remote wooded area.
The beginning of “Birthrite” shows lesbian couple Wren Collins (played Alice Kremelberg) and Maya Lopez (played by Juani Feliz) being shown the house that Wren (who has no siblings) has inherited from her deceased aunt Bertie, the sister of Wren’s mother. Wren didn’t even know that Bertie existed until she found out about this inheritance. Wren’s parents died in a fire during her first year of college.
Wren is a piano teacher who works from home. It’s unclear what Maya does for a living. Maya’s family is not seen or mentioned in the movie. Wren and Maya have a mixed-breed terrier dog named Simon, who is mostly take caren of by Maya. And because “Birthrite” is so predictable, you can easily guess what happens to a beloved family pet in a horror movie.
Wren and Maya decide to relocate from New York City to move to Wren’s inherited house because Wren no longer wants to live in New York City. Something traumatic happened to Wren there, and she still has nightmares and guilt over it: When Wren was a schoolteacher of third graders, one of her students (a girl named Angela) was killed in a car accident while Angela was under Wren’s care. This negligence resulted in Wren getting fired from her schoolteacher job.
Wren (who has been prescribed medication for depression and anxiety) and Maya (who is the more outspoken partner in this relationship) have been trying to start a family, with Wren being the one who is going through the fertility treatments. It just so happens that Bertie used to be a fertility specialist. And the house where Maya and Wren are living also used to be Bertie’s fertility clinic.
The last employee of the clinic is still hanging around. She’s a midwife named Rosalie (played by Jennifer Lafleur), who tells Wren and Maya some more information about Bertie. Meanwhile, Wren finds out that she’s pregnant. But because “Birthrite” is a horror movie, things don’t go smoothly at all with her pregnancy.
Along the way, Wren and Maya meet some of the locals who have more information to share. They include a bookstore clerk named Quentin (played by Owen Campbell), a bartender named Jean (played by Callie Beaulieu) and a bar customer named Paul (played by Michael Chernus), who comes and goes so quickly in the story, he might as well have not been in the movie. And there’s an inheritance estate attorney named Magnus Brewer (played by Kale Browne) that you immediately know is up to no good.
“Birthrite” is a weird and unappealing mix of long stretches of boredom and dialogues that are exposition dumps. Wren keeps seeing visons of a little girl (played Elsa Parent), who’s about 8 or 9 years old, from Wren’s past. These hallucinations are awkwardly shoehorned into the story. The acting performances in “Birthrite” are very mediocre, but the movie’s weakest links are the screenplay and directing. It all adds up to “Birthrite” being a forgettable and unimpressive horror film that doesn’t have anything interesting to show or tell.
Brainstorm Media released “Birthrite” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 8, 2025.