At the beginning of The Fetus, we find happy couple, Chris (Julian Curtis) and Alessa (Lauren LaVera), in bed doing, you know, couple stuff. Later when Chris heads to the bathroom, he realizes that the condom he was using broke. Chris stuffs it in the trash hoping for the best but the very next morning at a routine examination Alessa is informed that she is pregnant. The questions abound, not the least of which is “how could that happen so fast?” Writhing in pain, Alessa demands to be taken to the home of her reclusive father Maddox (Bill Moseley) rather than heading to the hospital. With an aggressively developing fetus within her, and knowing a little more than she is letting Chris in on, the two hightail it to dad’s cabin in the woods. What plays out from here is a zany, gory, homage to the glory days of practical effects-driven horror that is consistently entertaining if at times a bit muddled.

Along the way to dad’s place we get our first look at our bouncing baby bloodsucker. While in the ladies room, the beast within her grows hungry and emerges to feast on its first victim. Needing fresh blood to live without harming its host, it jumps on the first non relative it can find before retracting right back up into Alessa’s, uh, you know where. During the drive, Alessa preps Chris about her dad. A blind Vietnam vet, he sits on his front porch, waiting for trespassers with a shotgun on his lap. You know the kind. For his part Moseley does what Moseley does best, creating an unforgettable character within seconds of his introduction.

Alessa prepares a dinner for the three of them and then drops the news that she is with child. At this point we are still wondering why getting to Dad’s place was the priority but we soon find out. Maddox knows Alessa’s dark secret and more importantly, how to keep it from killing his daughter. But they need victims. Let’s be honest, any bloodthirsty monster needs them.

A veteran of short films, this is Joe Lam’s feature directing debut, AND his first foray into horror but you wouldn’t know it. Assisted on the screenplay by Nathan Faudree and Brielle Yuke Li, Lam has a good feel for the story beats in a typical scary movie enough to play with them a little and have some fun. He also understand the importance of levity, allowing moments for the audience to burst out laughing at the film’s absurd moments. No joke, at one point this fetus creature springs out of Alessa’s crotch like a king cobra to ambush a victim. It’s a scene in a film that I never really knew that I needed.

Also, of note, is the heavy reliance on traditional, practical effects. There are no fast cuts to mask dull CGI. Instead Lam and his crew relish the strange, often absurd look of the developing tendril of flesh with glorious close-ups, sparing no expense on the gloopy fluids to make the creature look just right. This is bonkers, campy, fun.

The three leads, Curtis, LaVera, and Moseley gamely jump into the story and characters with full commitment. With a story like this one, that is key to taking the audience along for the ride.

The one downside of The Fetus, is that it seems to buckle under the weight of its chaos. The requisite climax becomes a frantic mess. That said, everything up until then is so much fun you just sort of go with it. I mean, LaVera, Moseley, a killer fetus, and practical effects. what more do you want?