Over the course of nine months, Anna herself becomes increasingly deranged. And her psychotic fiance, Mike (Theo Rossi), wants Anna to keep the baby to extort more cash from the Taylors. A background check of Anna would have revealed a sordid, violent past. Her wide-eyed innocence and altruism in eagerly offering her body seem too good to be true. They find one in the comely Anna (Jaz Sinclair). Mindful of John’s callous warning that “We’re down to our last viable embryo,” the Taylors go shopping for a surrogate. Laura has suffered multiple miscarriages.
In fact, this probably is the first movie ever made in which a psycho killer stops short of completing an assault because her water breaks.The only thing missing in their apparent domestic bliss is a child. On the other hand, it should be noted that “When the Bough Breaks” isn’t entirely bereft of surprises. How generic? Consider: A pet cat is pointedly acknowledged so many times in the first and second acts that only the most clueless viewers will be stunned when it’s revealed that, sometimes, nine lives are not enough. (Or at least as much heat as two semi-nude people can generate during a lovemaking scene in a PG-13 movie.)Ĭassar is slightly more successful when it comes to building suspense during the mandatory scenes of violence and danger, despite his reliance on shocks, setups and payoffs best described as generic. But despite Sinclair’s impressively smooth transition from girlish innocent to alluring sexpot, her character’s attempts at seduction fail to generate much dramatic tension, since there’s never any real doubt about John’s loyalty to Laura - primarily because Chestnut and Hall generate so much heat together.
Working from a script by Jack Olsen, director Jon Cassar (“Forsaken”) dutifully endeavors to charge “When the Bough Breaks” with alternating currents of apprehension and eroticism. And as her pregnancy progresses, she grows ever obsessed with forming closer ties with the inconveniently married father of the baby she is carrying. Trouble is, Anna isn’t quite as virtuous, or as harmless, as she seems. When Mike appears to dial it up from creepy to abusive, the Taylors invite Anna to move into the guest house of their lush Garden District home.