First Born (2007 film)

First Born
Film poster
Directed by	Isaac Webb
Starring	Elisabeth Shue Steven Mackintosh
Music by	John Frizzell
Distributed by	Virtual Films
Release date	20 March 2007 (2007-03-20)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

First Born is a 2007 American drama film directed by Isaac Webb.

Cast

• Elisabeth Shue - Laura
• Steven Mackintosh - Steven
• Kathleen Chalfant - Mrs. Kasperian
• Khandi Alexander - Dierdre
• Anne Wolf - Samantha Lee

Plot

Laura is an artistic dancer married to a wealthy business man in New York City. She suspects she is pregnant after she gets sick to her stomach after a dancing performance. She takes the subway home, and while she is on the subway she sees a young woman sitting across from her holding a baby. The young woman keeps looking at her, and she gets uncomfortable and looks away from the young woman. After a moment, she looks back and the young woman is gone, and she has left her baby on the subway seat. Alarmed, Laura jumps up and runs over to the baby. But when she gets there, the baby is just a doll wrapped in a blanket. There is an echo of a baby crying in the background.

Laura gets a pregnancy test from the drug store and takes it home to her fancy apartment. Her small dog is sniffing around her purse; we see that Laura actually grabbed the doll from the subway and put it in her purse. She takes four pregnancy tests and they all come out positive. Later that night, her husband Steven comes home from work and announces he has made partner at his firm. Laura tells Steven she is pregnant, and they lovingly kiss and embrace. Steven tells Laura that he wants to move out of the city to the countryside because of the baby, but she is skeptical of moving.

They move out of the city to a large house in the countryside. The couple settle in and set up the baby room, installing cameras in the baby room so they can keep an eye on the baby. We see the baby doll at odd moments; the dog drags the doll around the house. Laura discovers they have a mice infestation, and goes to the store to buy mice poison. Her dog accidentally ingests the poison and dies. Laura takes this as a sign that she is going to be a horrible mother. While visiting the dog's grave out in the yard, she sees the baby doll laying near the dog's grave. She picks up the doll, and hears a baby crying hauntingly nearby. She gets scared and starts to run towards the house with the baby doll, but she trips and falls, and her water breaks. She drives herself to the hospital.

There are complications with the delivery, so she has to have an emergency C-section. During the C-section, she can hear babies crying in the background, and she catches a haunting reflection of herself in a glass pane. The baby is born a girl. After the baby is born, Laura has trouble breast feeding, and the nurse warns her that she needs to be certain that the baby is getting milk, so that the baby does not starve to death. Laura seems disturbed by the nurse's cold bedside manner and comments. She visits the nursery area and sees other parents there cooing and smiling at their baby, while she just looks like she is about to cry.

At home, Laura is having trouble sleeping because the baby wakes up hungry at night a lot. It appears that Steven doesn't take any time off work to help out, and she feels lonely and scared. While pumping her breast milk, she notices that blood has gotten into the breast milk and she throws it out, very upset. She talks to her mother on the phone, and her mother assures her that feeling sad and upset after giving birth is a normal thing. Her mother tells her to make sure that Steven is helping out, but Laura says she does not want to bother him with the baby. Laura keeps hearing haunting baby crying in the background at odd moments.

She gets locked in the basement because the door is broken, and she is locked down there all day, hearing the baby cry for her. Steven comes home from work at night and discovers the baby crying alone. He hears Laura shouting from the basement and lets her out. Laura is extremely upset and immediately feeds the baby. Laura tells Steven that she thinks the baby hates her and is a terrible mother. Steven requests the help of a nanny to assist Laura with the baby, a seemingly kind old lady named Mrs. Kasperian from Europe. Laura and her seem to get along well, and she provides company to Laura as well as helping her take care of the baby. But Laura still cannot sleep at night.

Later that week, Steven reminds Laura that she needs to be on time for his company's dinner event that night. He is not nice while speaking with her. Laura is trying to figure out how to do her hair, and she freaks out when she notices that she has a ton of gray hair at her roots. She goes to the store to buy hair dye, and she seems detached from the baby while there. She goes home and dyes her hair, and is trying to figure out what to wear. She glances at the baby monitor, and she realizes the baby is not in its crib. She runs out of the house, thinking she has left the baby at the store, but finds the baby in the car okay. She is very upset at herself and holds the baby for a long time, until evening. Mrs. Kasperian arrives after nightfall to babysit, and she discovers Laura still sitting on the sofa holding the baby, with hair dye still in her hair. She rinses out the hair dye, and Mrs. Kasperian gives her advice about being a new mom and how difficult it can be. Steven calls Laura and asks if she has left the house yet, and she cannot remember where she is supposed to be. Steven becomes angry and reminds her of where she is supposed to be and that she needs to hurry. Laura tells Steven that she does not feel good and does not want to come, and Steven gets angry again. Laura agrees to get ready and go. Laura goes to brush her hair, and huge gobs of hair come out in the brush due to the hair dye being in for so long. She grabs a pair of scissors from the drawer and proceeds to cut her hair short.

Laura arrives at the dinner party in a summer dress with her bra showing, while everyone else is dressed for a black tie event. Steven is angry that she has cut her hair. Laura becomes worried that she left the baby at home, and she calls home to check in on the baby, but Mrs. Kasperian does not answer the phone. Mrs. Kasperian is seen attaching a red cloth full of something to the bottom of the baby's crib. Laura imagines that everybody is talking about her at the dinner party. She leaves the party and goes home to check on the baby. Laura asks Steven if he heard everyone talking badly about her, and he says he did not hear anything. He tells her that she owes him an apology for letting him down and leaving the party early; she showed up late and looked like a mess.

Laura still has trouble sleeping, and starts having disturbing dreams about stabbing herself. When she wakes up, she has started bleeding from her C-section. At the hospital, the doctor has a very cold bedside manner and disregards her concerns about taking antibiotics and breastfeeding. She tries to tell the doctor about how anxious she has been, but he just prescribes her sleeping pills and lets her go.

At home, Laura keeps imagining that the baby is crying, even when she is not. Mrs. Kasperian comes over again to help, and insists that Laura go rest. Laura lies down in bed, but she wakes up in the bathtub full of water. She gets dressed and watches Mrs. Kasperian on the baby monitor put the baby in the crib. Then she sees the nanny pick up a butcher knife out of the crib. Laura panics and grabs a golf club and runs into the nursery. She yells at Mrs. Kasperian and demands to know what she is doing. Mrs. Kasperian says that she found the knife in the baby's crib. Laura demands that she get away from the baby, but Mrs. Kasperian refuses, stating that there is something wrong with Laura and that she just wants to protect the baby. Laura chases her out of the room with the golf club. Laura calls the police and they take a report. The police officer insists that he has known Mrs. Kasperian for a long time and he did not think she would ever hurt a baby, but that they would go question her.

Later that night, Laura is holding the baby and she hears someone trying to break into the house. She leaves the baby on the bed and grabs the butcher knife. She creeps around the house looking for the intruder. She keeps hearing random noises, such as doorknobs being turned and babies crying. Then she sees a person that resembles her running through the house. She runs back to the baby and calls the police. She hides the baby in the closet as the intruder starts banging on her bedroom door. She opens the door to confront the person, but there is nobody there. She searches around the house, but does not find anybody. She goes outside, and the door slams shut, locking her out of the house. She looks through the window and again sees the intruder running through the house. She breaks a window and gets back into the house, and then chases the intruder upstairs. But nobody is up there. The cops and Steven show up, and the cops tell Steve that Laura's story does not add up, that there does not appear to have been an intruder. The cop also tells Steven that they questioned Mrs. Kasperian and she said that she found the butcher knife already in the baby's crib. Steven begins to realize that Laura is very troubled.

Laura keeps having bad dreams. She dreams about the C-section, and about the girl on the subway holding the baby doll. The next day, Laura takes the baby doll out to the pool and "drowns" it in the water. Laura goes inside and puts her real baby into its crib, and then notices the red cloth attached to the bottom of the crib. She opens it and it has a piece of her hair and a baby's pacifier inside. Steven has decided to take a month off and stay home with Laura. While he is on the phone with his work, he sees a baby floating in the pool. He panics and runs outside and dives into the pool, only to discover that it is just the baby doll. He goes inside and puts the baby doll on the nursery dresser. Laura goes to a local bookstore and asks about books on witchcraft. She reads the book at home, and it states that mice and baby dolls can be evil witchcraft objects. She hears the baby crying, and goes into the nursery. She screams as she sees the baby covered in white mice, and yanks her from the crib. She starts shaking the baby to get the mice off her, yelling and screaming. Steven runs into the nursery and yells at her to stop; there are no mice anywhere. Steven takes Laura to a mental health emergency room, where the doctor tells him that she might be suffering from postpartum psychosis.

Laura's mother comes to help out. Laura decides to try dancing again, now that Steven and her mother are there to help with the baby. She seems unusually upbeat and happy. That night, Laura hears the baby crying and gets up. She goes into the nursery, but the baby is not crying, even though she is hearing the crying still. She sees the baby doll sitting on the dresser and picks it up. She takes the baby doll outside and grabs a shovel from the garage. She goes out on the lawn and buries the baby doll under the lawn. Then she goes back to bed with a smile on her face.

The next morning, Steven comes downstairs, and Laura's mother asks where the baby is. Steven says she is still sleeping and will go check on her. He goes into the nursery and sees the baby doll in the crib. He goes into the bedroom and asks Laura where "Jessica" is. Laura asks "Who is Jessica?" and Steven laughs and asks "Where is the baby?". Laura asks "What baby?". Steven panics and runs through the house calling out for Jessica.

External links

• First Born at IMDb
• First Born at Rotten Tomatoes