Now at the movies: Welcome Home Baby

Anyone who feels that German-language cinema relies too heavily on comedies and dramas should take note: Austrian filmmaker Andreas Prochaska - who already demonstrated his talent for crossing genre boundaries with his Alpine western "The Dark Valley" - now brings a full-fledged horror film to the screen with "Welcome Home Baby." The story begins with an unexpected inheritance that turns the life of Berlin emergency physician Judith (Julia Franz Richter) upside down. The house in Austria that suddenly belongs to her appears to be the place where she was born, though she was given away as a child. Determined to sell the property, she sets off with her husband Ryan for the remote village deep in the mountains. There she encounters an isolated, women-dominated community - and her aunt Paula (Gerti Drassl), who insists that Judith must stay. Judith's condition slowly begins to deteriorate: visions from her childhood, sudden loss of control, and inexplicable gaps in perception push her to the brink of madness. Prochaska's gripping shocker - already acclaimed at the Berlinale and at Fantasy Filmfest - unfolds as a surreal nightmare. While it inevitably calls to mind celebrated predecessors like Ari Aster's "Midsommar," it ultimately creates a dark, unsettling world all its own.