Debut feature does its best to keep things feeling supernatural as woman faced with impossible parenting demands slides into psychosis

Descending fully inside postnatal depression and psychosis, this horror film blends hallucination, premonition, memory and flashback; what it loses in storytelling precision it makes up for in desperate incarceration within one new mother’s headspace.

As soon as she comes home, Meredith (Emily Hampshire) is scrubbing her own birth discharge off the floor. While husband Jared (François Arnaud) is unexpectedly delighted at fatherhood, her new role chafes at an existential level. Son Alex won’t settle in her hands, Jared pushes her to take care of the house while she’s busy expressing milk and, rather than dealing with a burning meal, she smashes her smoke detector. “It’s better to accept you need to try, than be ashamed you need to try,” says Meredith’s therapist of her misfiring maternal affections. But by the time she is seeing visions of cribs overflowing with blood, and of Alex as a young boy, it feels like she needs far more regular sessions.