Metacritic reviews

While False Positive has lapses in logic and could have a quicker pace in the second half, it fully embraces a bizarre sense of the macabre that is irresistible.

A sharp screenplay and strong performances give this life as a watchable thriller, rather than just a mere pastiche.

Director Lee, who co-wrote the screenplay with Glazer and was a frequent Broad City collaborator, doesn’t quite sustain that bold stylistic stamp, even if the perturbing intimacy and insidious angles of the visuals go a long way toward masking the uneven tone.

Glazer and Lee both work primarily in comedy, but the commentary here is drier and more serious, producing knowing nods instead of outright laughter.

The climax is entertaining and crazy but not necessarily as satisfying as it hopes to be. Still, for all its flaws and inability to deliver in the end, False Positive is a captivating take on the misrepresentation of the pregnancy “glow.”

There are ominously edited portents and a score that starts at fever pitch and rarely pulls back. But the frayed strands of the horror plot feel hastily woven together, and underwhelming when all is revealed.

Lee (who directed episodes of “Broad City”) and Glazer swerve from comedy to horror, using the genre as a vehicle for social commentary about modern motherhood, misogyny and manipulation. False Positive is Glazer’s “Get Out,” which is a phrase you want to scream at her character, Lucy, over and over again.

False Positive threads classic horror-film tropes with a woozy, partially comic sensibility but doesn’t fully commit to this approach.

Through the performances from Glaser and Brosnan, as well as its unabashed willingness to look extremely silly, False Positive may be worth one’s time. This is Friday-night thriller cinema from the Single White Female or Hand That Rocks the Cradle book, and sometimes that’s just what one is seeking. For anything more than that, look elsewhere. Like, to Rosemary’s Baby. Again.

Trapped in some bizarre movie genre hinterland, wholly resistant to veering too far in any direction, this aimless film isn’t dark enough to be scary, funny enough to be a comedy, or smart enough to say anything about the many topics it seems to want to tackle.