Hell Baby (2013)

"An expectant couple who moves into the most haunted house in New Orleans call upon the services of the Vatican's elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby. "

Yeah, I know I said I was going to take a break, but I saw that other people had been writing about this movie and decided to upset myself with another crappy one for my final "Torture Tuesday" until after October.

Although the cheap-looking opening slideshow of random American "houses" in various states of disrepair made me want to switch this off immediately, I stuck with it only to discover that it was a typical American comedy, i.e. full of moronic characters (who wouldn't survive in the real world without the aid of professional carers) doing and saying stupid things.

Thus, while the concept of parodying "Rosemary's Baby", "The Amityville Horror", and "The Exorcist" isn't necessarily a bad one, the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and of course, it's not the first time that any of those movies have been spoofed. There's nothing here that hasn't already been done in the "Scary Movie" series apart from a couple of un-politically correct lines.

In its favour, the awkward scenes between Rob Corddry and Keegan Michael Key are nicely done. Their style is a bit of a half-way house between "Airplane" and "The Office", and there's nothing to complain about if you're a fan of that kind of comedy. I prefer more slapstick and cruelty, so "Hell Baby" was just like watching a '90s-style teen-comedy full of tame running gags and puerile "gross out" humour to me. Having said that, I can't fault it for not being more obscene because it's an American comedy after all and can only be judged as such.

The actresses also do a good job being ditzy. It's a toss up between Leslie Bibb and Riki Lindhome for who steals the show as the hottest, but as the latter isn't padded-up to look pregnant and gets completely naked, I think she has the edge. Further eyecandy is provided in a flashback sequence of sexy Italian nurses played by Brittney Alger, Tara Cullen, and Jessica Loyacono.

I wasn't so enamoured by the priests and cops who are aren't skewered enough for their hypocrisy to really offend anyone. There's one jibe about Catholic priests being gay, but it's barely acknowledged, and it should have gone into much darker areas. The cops are simply idiots whose skits continue the "neurons not quite connecting" style. The only thing I got out of any of their interactions is that I now know what a "Po Boy" sandwich is, and I want one.

There's not much horror in this movie apart from a naked 90-year-old woman, one off-camera murder, four kills in total, and the fight scenes with the demonic baby. The production values are decent enough and the effects aren't too bad, but the finale borrows a lot from "Basket Case" (1982) and Cindy's battle with Mr. Kittles in "Scary Movie 2" (2001).

Given that I don't like horror-comedies anyway, I'm still objectively forced to rate this as below average rather than a complete waste of time. I can see how it would amuse some people, but too many punches are pulled and not enough is made of the horror elements for "Hell Baby" to be worth anything more than a curious rental.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

"A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbours and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life."

Day 16 of my "Hallowe'en Countdown" brings us "Rosemary"s Baby". Why? Because the story begins in October, and it's full of witches, that's why. Hallowe'en is, after all, still one of the most important of the witches' sabbats whether a new name was slapped on top of the old pagan festival or not.

Although Rosemary is impregnated on the October 4th, 1965 according to her calendar and tells her husband the good news on the 29th, with a further blood test scheduled for November 1st, we can all assume that the witches had a little something extra to celebrate during their Hallowe'en weekend. Bizarrely, no Samhain festivities are shown.

At first, it's surprising that Roman Polanski didn't utilize the obvious cliché, but upon further reflection, maybe not. Even the most superficial searches of the internet reveal many conspiracy theories surrounding Roman Polanski, Satanism and the setting of the movie itself. For those of us who hadn't even been born when the events were going down in real life, it all makes fascinating reading which goes beyond mere coincidence. Did Roman Polanski sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for success or did he get involved with the "pseudo-Illuminati", who knows? If he did either, surely putting a warning message about secret societies into a movie wasn't the brightest idea.

But who even cares about any of that behind the scenes nonsense? We all know that movie people are strange and have pretty messed up lives anyway. If it adds to the appreciation of Polanksi's study of paranoia in "Rosemary's Baby" (which is based on Ira Levin's novel from the year before), so be it. I've always found "Rosemary's Baby" interesting for far less occult reasons.

Longer hair suits her more than a Vidal Sassoon bob.

As shallow as it may be, the main reason I like "Rosemary's Baby' is because Mia Farrow looks pretty in it, and she gets nude several times. I don't like her acting and could cheerfully strangle her character, but this is the only film I've ever seen her in where she looks attractive. Maybe not so much in the picture above, but for a very skinny and almost skeletal girl, Mia Farrow has several moments where the camera really loves her.

Rosemary Woodhouse is a very well written character and suits Mia Farrow perfectly. Having watched "The Haunting of Julia" (1977) only a couple of months ago and noted the lack of her development as an actress, it's clear that Mia Farrow really only played herself anyway. All that nervousness and neuroses are unlikely to be a product of simply being typecast.

As for supporting characters in "Rosemary's Baby", I loathe them all to different degrees which, obviously, is their raison d'être. From the controlling Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) treating his wife like a child to the excessively irritating Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) pushing the nosy neighbour stereotype to breaking point, they are all shown to be horrible people. If there's a warning in this film, it's never move to New York city.

It's pronounced "moose" not "mouse", you old bag!

Ruth Gordon does a fantastic (and Oscar winning) job as the ultimate "neighbour from Hell", but I could never tolerate much of her as an actress. Her voice, her face, and the way she delivers her lines just makes me think of the "kill it with fire" meme. Why Rosemary doesn't just deliver a deluge of the expletives which would fall so easily out of my own mouth to someone as pushy as that is one of the weakest parts of "Rosemary's Baby" for me. No matter how naive Rosemary is supposed to be, Americans are generally not so backward in coming forward when something annoys them. It's all part of the sinister plot though.

Since "Rosemary's Baby" is regarded as a classic movie by the majority of critics (not only by horror fans), I'm not going to make myself look foolish by picking any more holes in it. For one thing, I can't really find anything wrong other than how it never delivers the punchline of actually showing the baby. Bearing in mind that it was released during the Summer of 1968, and the effects for the brief appearance by the Devil himself were the best that could be done, it was a wise decision not to show an infant with glowing eyes, cloven hooves, horns, or a long, pointy tail.

If you've never seen "Rosemary's Baby" before, I've no doubt spoiled a lot of it for you. It's nearly 45 years old now though so you've had plenty of time to watch it. With the number of times it's been shown on television across the world, its almost impossible that anyone doesn't already know the story inside and out. The chances are that you haven't put in on for a while though so plonk it in your DVD player tonight and give it another whirl.

Grace (2009)

"After losing her unborn child, Madeline Matheson insists on carrying the baby to term. Following the delivery, the child miraculously returns to life with an appetite for human blood. Madeline is faced with a mother's ultimate decision."

I watched this ages ago through Netflix but forgot to post the review up until now. Anyway, "Grace" was more of a drama with a few horror moments than a real horror film and it certainly wasn't in any way scary.

It's no spoiler to tell you that it was about a dead baby which comes back to life and needs to drink blood to live. You'll get that from the DVD sleeve and the trailer.

What you won't expect is how slow and character driven it all is. To say that it's another typical Canadian independent film would just be an insult to Canada and independent films but that's really the only way to describe it. There's a certain subgenre of Canadian movies which all have the same pacing and would drag if it wasn't for the camerawork and story. "Grace" however isn't as good as any of those.

"Grace" is really something that would be better as a 15 minute short as it doesn't really go anywhere. There are no twists or real surprises and it's 100% predictable. The only saving grace (yeah, I realise the pun) is that Jordan Ladd is quite easy on the eye.

I also noticed a really good goof at the 45 min. 49 sec. mark. One of the crew is clearly visible hiding in the doorway while Jordan Ladd is emptying meat into her wheelie bins outside. In fact he's so visible that I thought she was going to go back indoors and have an intruder jump out on her. He didn't and the director's commentary doesn't even mention it either so it just shows how little attention was paid to the editing.

It's still not a totally bad film for one viewing but the more times you watch it, the more you can tear it apart. I watched it twice over and my rating went down from an initial 5 out of 10 to just 2.

I hated Jordan Ladd's weirdo vegan character and all the stuff with breast feeding just made me want to keep saying "Bitty! Bitty Now!" like the David Walliams character in "Little Britain". One scene involving the old mother-in-law really was that sketch too.