Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Into the Dark: Delivered’ on Hulu, a Mother’s Day Thriller That Keeps it Simple, Stupid

This month, Hulu and Blumhouse’s horror anthology Into the Dark offers another Mother’s Day episode in which, disappointingly, nobody dies as a result of being incessantly reminded to eat their vegetables, take out the trash or put on a jacket for crying out loud, it’s cold outside. No, as some movies in this series stick to a jokey horror-comedy tone, this is one of the serious ones, so gear yourself up for a sphincter clenching — but whether it’s a mighty constriction or just an anemic pucker remains to be seen.

INTO THE DARK: DELIVERED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Val (Natalie Paul) is very pregnant. It’s three weeks til launch, and it’s been a rough nine months, punctuated with lots of vomiting, worry and general physical and mental weariness. Good thing she has her husband Tom (Joel Dupont) by her side, since he’s no doubt a finalist for Nicest Man in the World every year — he fetches her ice cream, cheerfully assembles the crib and attends mommy-to-be yoga classes with her. At the latter, they meet Jenny (Tina Majorino), who’s a couple months along and single and on her own and just sweet as all the dickens in tarnation. 

Jenny invites them over for a nice homemade dinner at her old farmhouse located off a dirt road that’s off another dirt road. Why it’s just the type of place where you could scream like a banshee and nobody would hear you! So secluded and private! And it’s here that we learn mousy, warm, precious, huggable Jenny is a whack-job absolutely in the spirit of Lizzy Borden, because there’s this scene with an axe, and I shouldn’t say anymore.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: OK, I’ll say one more thing here real quick — there’s a scene where Val wakes up tied to Jenny’s guest bed, and we catch a hardcore Misery chill. And the locale where all the horror occurs is deep enough in the sticks for one to justifiably interpret the title Delivered as a riff on Deliverance. 

Performance Worth Watching: Majorino is suitably menacing when she channels Kathy Bates in eat-your-soup-or-I’ll-kill-you psycho-sado-hospitality mode.

Memorable Dialogue: Jenny corrects Val succinctly: “No — OUR baby.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: All right, so I tried not to reveal that Jenny wants Val’s baby, but this being a Mother’s Day episode of Into the Dark, nobody expects it NOT to exploit the trepidation experienced by many a pregnant first-time mom, and force her to drill deep to tap into those maternal instincts upon visiting a too-nice-to-be-true lady at her light-years-from-civilization home. If you can’t predict what’s coming here, then I hope you enjoy the first movie you’ve ever seen!

Delivered is simple, stripped-down storytelling — four major locations, four characters (with a very delicate fifth one on the way), a quick 80 minutes in length, suspense stretched tight by director Emma Tammi. It has no goals beyond that, except maybe a quick dip in the psychological complexities of motherhood, considering the ironic juxtaposition of Jenny, who wants a baby so bad it’s made her utterly cuckoo, and Val, who has the baby but isn’t sure if parenthood is really her bag. There are reasons for both of these things that I won’t get into, but the movie doesn’t show much interest in being subtle. It’s all there, clean and clear and uncluttered, mostly for better but maybe also a little bit for worse.

The movie indulges some cliches, including more than one instance of cheapo it-was-only-a-dream rug-pulling and a couple cornball jump-scares, and the plot hinges on a few contrivances in which characters do the dumb thing instead of the rather obvious smart thing. But its flaws are mostly forgivable considering how it so effectively nurtures our desire to see the pestiferous villain slowly devoured by sea urchins, or at least viciously maimed, which speaks well for Majorino’s work here. And yes, it inspires tension in our buttcheek areas, neither mighty nor anemic, but a worthy clench nonetheless. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Delivered isn’t a whopper, nor is it undersized like too many recent Into the Darks. It clocks in at 7.5 lbs. and 20 inches long, an absolutely median-sized horror-baby boasting a few memorable scenes and nursing a compulsion to watch the whole thing. Remember, faint praise is still mostly praise.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Into the Dark: Delivered on Hulu