San Francisco IndieFest 2025 Coverage
Baby Fever review
The stress an expecting mother places on herself leads to devastating consequences.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Baby Fever
Directed by Nupur Chitalia and Pascale Potvin
Written by Pascale Potvin
Starring Sara Caspian, Mark Pettit, Zoe Georgaras, Sandy Ramdin, Raluca Urlea, Allisha Pelletier, Kimberly Wells and Bethany Monaghan
Baby Fever Review
One of the great things about covering film festivals is getting to go into a first time watch completely blind. You have to work to find a trailer for most of the movies you’ll be seeing. Compare that to the onslaught of Speak No Evil trailers before it hit theaters or the way Knock at the Cabin just straight up spoiled the only secret the story was holding onto. Hell, for as good as Companion was…it would have been even more impactful had its second trailer not revealed a piece of information it didn’t have to. When I was prepping the review for Baby Fever from this year’s San Francisco IndieFest…the only information I stumbled upon was that IMDB listed it as a comedy/horror/thriller. In that order. IMDB was lying to me.
Ok…maybe not outright lying. Perhaps you’ll find some oddly dark humor in Baby Fever. I certainly found a moment here or there that worked in that way. The number one takeaway I had about halfway through Baby Fever, however, is that it was decidedly not a comedy. Despite early teases that it could be taking a Heathers or even Mean Girls like path…Baby Fever veers heavily into trauma horror and away from those societal hierarchy/social commentary ideas.
It certainly doesn’t start out that way. The first act of Baby Fever provides a setup ripe for that kind of dark, humorous commentary. Lila (Sara Caspian) is pregnant…and hopeful to break into the local mom support group led by the popular Trish (Zoe Georgaras). Lila’s husband James (Mark Pettit) worries that her desire for acceptance (as well as constant job hunt) is putting too much stress on her pregnancy. Not to mention his immediate suspicion that something is strange about the group. A mom group that never has any children around. Seems weird. Trish and her loyal followers end up admitting Lila to the group…which only brings added pressure to her.
This is where Baby Fever becomes an entirely different movie than you’d expect it to. It isn’t about Lila’s attempt to climb the social ladder. It isn’t about the mysteries surrounding Trish’s mom support group. In the end, it’s not even about Lila’s pregnancy. Baby Fever is about the psychological breakdown of a woman who can no longer determine what is real. It doesn’t undercut any of this with laughs (until, perhaps, the final scene). It’s a harrowing and personal descent into madness for its lead character.
We’re not sure what’s real either. Lila is our way into the world of Baby Fever. We see things the way she is experiencing them…and she is an unreliable narrator. Or…maybe things are happening exactly as she perceives them to be. You can decide that for yourself…though I believe the way we see the support group act before, during and after Lila’s ordeal contains the answer. The group plays a much smaller role in the narrative than you’d expect given their prominent position in the first half hour of the story. That doesn’t mean their presence serves no purpose. In some ways…the group is the most intriguing aspect of Baby Fever. From their pronounced importance to their role in supporting Lila through the ending…where they really don’t turn out to be exactly what you expected in a way you probably didn’t expect.
The dynamic between Lila and James shifts radically as Lila’s mental health circles the drain. Again, how much of this is in her head is up for debate. For a while, at least. I felt like I had a good handle on the truth by the time Baby Fever hit its end credits. You might see things in a completely different way, of course. That’s what makes stories like this fun to watch and discuss.
Aside from the laughs that IMDB made me believe were coming, Baby Fever was a surprising little story of the pressure Lila is putting on herself destroying everything in and around her. It’s much more serious than the first act would lead you to believe. A darker story than you expect from the opening premise. And a good reminder of why watching movies with as little knowledge as possible is the best way to live.
Scare Value
Baby Fever isn’t what I thought it was going to be. And that doesn’t come from marketing or reading reviews…it comes from within its own story. It purposely misdirects you before turning into something else entirely. Something darker and more personal than expected.
