Breede

Breeder, the debut feature from writer-director Alex Goyette, has a chilling premise. It’s the rare horror movie so effective in concept alone that its few missteps can be mostly overlooked. The story follows MIT dropout Russell (Daniel Doheny), an independent bee population researcher with a plan to help apiaries thrive; however, grant boards won’t take his work seriously because he never completed his PhD, despite coming close. Just when he’s about ready to give up, he receives a mysterious letter from an award-winning poodle breeder named Patti (Dot-Marie Jones). She sends him a $20,000 check and suggests there could be much more if he’ll meet her for dinner at her house in the country. Setting aside the red flags his fiancée (Tanaya Beatty) points out, he decides to go, unable to pass up the chance at full funding. But when he arrives, he discovers Patti’s disturbing quid pro quo.

Patti’s isolated farmhouse is the kind of obvious, underlit, future crime-scene location Russell should immediately drive away from, but he’s so eager to get his research funded that he rationalizes or actively ignores every warning sign. With Breeder, Goyette asks how far you’d go to succeed. And if you’re willing to go that far, why not a little further? One might compare this to how we’ve become a culture that will do anything for advancement, from influencers who sell their dignity and integrity online to those who rely on AI for research or creative pursuits. It’s about the shortcuts people take. Russell hasn’t done the work the scientific community expects, and this movie tells the story of the lengths he’ll go to get what he wants outside the usual channels. 

Jones plays Patti in an intimidating performance that feels like the humorless sister of Annie Wilkes from Misery (1990): a strict, intense, unhinged woman who carries a revolver and has a short temper. She oversees several intelligent young women who live with her and behave like obedient dogs. Russell attempts to accommodate her bizarre behavior, even when she reveals her actual business involves breeding human children who she believes are genetically superior. About the time Russell barely speaks up against her belief in eugenics (a scientifically discredited theory supported by Nazis and the current wackadoo Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), his spinelessness becomes a problem. Patti promises to fund his entire project if he agrees to remain there for an indeterminate amount of time, cheat on his partner, and help impregnate her female stock to produce black market babies from the “best” DNA sources.  

Russell grows increasingly desperate as he falls further under Patti’s control. To capture this abhorrent moral territory, Goyette works with cinematographer Jaryl Lim to create a shadowy, David Fincher-esque color scheme of amber-hued images and grimy rooms. The filmmaking is confident, patient, and controlled, and Breeder never plays like a first film. The situation becomes troubling yet darkly funny when Russell thinks he has an ally in Ainsley (Maddie Phillips), the young woman he’s supposed to sleep with. But she’s just as afraid as he is. Patti oversees their awkward sessions, mandating Russell engage in three minutes of foreplay before “mounting” Ainsley. A lesser movie would make these scenes sexually exploitative to uncomfortable degrees, but Breeder spares us that. Later, after Russell proves shy under pressure, he’s locked in a room and told to supply what amounts to gallons of semen before he can leave. It’s all very unsettling, but like the detestable characters in most early-2000s horror, Russell is hard to care about, and his eventual scheme to get the upper hand and escape falls flat.  

Hitting theaters from the Independent Film Company, then streaming on Shudder, Breeder has potential. Goyette’s cleverly arranged scenario has enough intrigue to keep the viewer rapt, though not completely satisfied by the end. It’s a curious outcome for Russell, who ends up fully funded because of his ordeal. I wondered whether Russell regretted going through with Patti’s plan instead of just, say, finishing his PhD. His choices prove rather contemptible, since he ultimately supports Patti’s messed-up eugenics plan. His apparent lack of regret reflects how people can compartmentalize violations of their principles in service of ambition. Although Breeder leaves us with no one to root for, its story logic makes some leaps, and its script could be tighter, the experience is too compelling and well-presented to disregard for its few flaws.