lend themselves to two genres. One is comedy. In films such as “Delivery Man”, artificial insemination is the premise for a farce: as reproduction happens in sterile Petri dishes, not between the sheets, there is room for mishaps involving multiple babies and mixed-up identities. Most tales of this kind end happily, with sperm donors embracing the strangers they helped to create.. That is partly because the world of fertility treatment overlaps with horror tropes.
Film-makers explored concerns about the idea of growing life outside the human body even before fertility treatment became widely available. In 1976, two years before the first baby conceived via in vitro fertilisation was born, the film “Embryo” expressed fears about artificial uteruses.outside the womb
“False Positive” and “Clock” also express concern at the flouting of rules and the scientific method. In both films, part of the problem is that the treatment is experimental . In “False Positive” Dr Hindle uses his “own technique” for insemination. In “Clock” a combination of newly developed synthetic hormones, cognitive-behavioural therapy and a peculiar uterine device is supposed to “fix” Ella’s “broken” maternal instinct and help her get pregnant.