Embryo (2020 film)

The film starts with a found footage on camcorder tape played in V/H/S style, setting the date as 2008. It tells how a group of filmmakers are working in Snowdevil Mountains when suddenly one of their lead actresses disappears without trace. Four years later, a couple ventures into those mountains, only to discover that the female had become suddenly pregnant. Fast forward to modern times, we see Rafaela, who during her youth experiences a horrifying home invasion, during which an alien lifeform returns to take what's rightfully theirs.[3]

Meanwhile, while camping out in the woods of the Chilean countryside, Kevin and his girlfriend Evelyn are being abducted by aliens. Following the abduction, the species from an outer galaxy impregnate Evelyn and drop her and Kevin off in the same place where they abducted them. Meanwhile, the alien inside Evelyn's body begins to grow at an alarming rate, causing her to be thirsty for human blood and hungry for its flesh. While in a hospital, where she was brought by her boyfriend Kevin, Evelyn savagely attacks the doctor and feeds on his body. Upon not feeling satisfied, she then decides to attack the rest of the hospital personnel. Meanwhile, Kevin, who was an eyewitness to the situation, decides not to hand her over to the police and instead pursues a different method – escaping the hospital and bringing Evelyn to the Chilean capital, Santiago, where her embryo will be successfully removed.

• Romina Perazzo as Evelyn Jones
• Domingo Guzmán as Kevin
• Carolina Escobar as Camila
• Cristian Cuentrejo as Jorquera police officer
• Luis Vitalino Grandón as doctor
• Vittorio Farfan as truck driver #1
• Manuel Navarrete as truck driver #2
• Alan Robinson as truck driver #3
• Patricio Valladares as truck driver #4
• Evelyn Belmar as Carla
• Yuri Caceres as Yuri
• Paulina Facuse as Paulina
• Gloria Furmanjuk as Ana
• Giordano Rossi as Ignacio
• Rafaela Valladares as Rafaela
• Ignacio Muñoz
• François Soto

Filming began in winter 2017 in Kyiv, Ukraine.[4][5][6] Principal photography for Embryo began in 2018.[1]

On 23 April 2018, Embryo was selected to participate at the Upcoming Fantastic Films section of Blood Window at Cannes International Film Festival.[7] The film was released on video on demand and digital on 6 April 2021.[8]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has a score of 20% based on reviews from five critics, with an average rating of 3.9/10.[9]

Rob Rector of Film Threat gave the film a score of 4 out of 10 and called it "a concept with potential..."[10]

Kat Hughes of The Horror News wrote "Patricio Valladares returns to his Chilean roots with an extraterrestrial anthology film that has strong echoes of Return of the Living Dead III".[3]

Martin Unsworth of Starburst added "Mostly shot amongst some spectacular scenery, Embryo's structure moves between camcorder footage and the slicker main segments, which has flashes of gore and at times reminds us of Cronenberg's Shivers and Rabid.[11]

Alain Elliott of Nerdly suggested that "Maybe Embryo might have been better if it had gone down a more traditional horror anthology route but it would have been a very different movie and not the movie I suspect the director would have wanted".[12]

• Embryo at IMDb