Hell Baby

Horror comedies are incredibly difficult to pull off. Sometimes movies try hard to be funny and that air of desperation seems alarmingly obvious. Sometimes no restraint can and cannot work. Sometimes it seems as if they are scattershot (or maybe buckshot is better) and the laughs hit paydirt or land with a loud, resounding thud. And people’s sense of humor varies so what works for some doesn’t others. I have seen reactions vary towards the likes of American Werewolf in London and Return of the Living Dead, with some not drinking their Kool-Aid. Sometimes films are just so bizarre they elicit laughs because of dialogue that seem random, daft, and out-there. Sometimes, like in the case of Hellbaby, those involved find themselves funny, make their movie based on how they laugh at each other’s gags/jokes and the product that comes out of them fails to rub off on the audience. That’s not to say the hard work to tickle our funnybone isn’t a lack of trying. Sometimes those in front of the camera wholly commit and believe in the material’s ability to make us laugh while poking fun at the genre (in this case Hollywood’s insistence on loud sound effects and a roaringly obnoxious score; there’s even heavy use of piano (something I’m a sucker for)), and I admittedly will sometimes smile and laugh at them because their efforts don’t go unnoticed. There are times when I pity good actors struggling with trying to reinforce how funny the material is when it isn’t all that uproarious. I think Hellbaby is an example of this as well. Like in Club Dread, I actually recognize and admire that energy in the cast and direction to entertain and amuse us. Whether it is a success or not depends, I guess, on what you find funny. You can be as animated and loud with the dialogue, which cries aloud, “LAUGH PEOPLE!!!” and it just come off as a hopeless cause. That’s not to say, though, that the effort isn't totally in vain.
**

Robert Corddry and Leslie Bibb move into a house in the projects, much to the surprise of the neighbors and sure enough their happy abode (a run-down work-a-day ordeal for them, needing a great deal of repairs/home improvements) is possessed by a demonic spirit. Bibb is pregnant and her fetus becomes possessed with the Devil. She also is possessed as she starts to behave strangely. Demon-fighting Vatican priests (Warriors of the Cloth, I like to refer to them) will be sent their way to do battle with hellbaby.

The house looks like a death trap with plankboards and wood all over the place, along with open wires and cords. To say this house looks hazardous to your health would be an understatement.

Look, there are moments here that did have me laughing a bit. The oral sex by a creepy nursing home patient scene where Corddry realizes that bludgeoning her with a fire extinguisher after she provides him with a blow job (under the sheets he thought it was his wife, much to his surprise!). I questioned why I would laugh at it, but fuck-all if I didn't. But then there’s the scene where Corddry wayyyyyy overdoes a freak out when Bibb, in demon voice, recites some sort of warning to a dog that realizes its presence in her. Sometimes there’s something funny followed right after with something that falls harder that a nickel to the sidewalk from the Empire State Building. With this movie it has highs and lows, immediately following each other.

I have seen a lot of comedies—especially satires—that go off on tangents that do leave me laughing a bit. Like when Bibb agrees to see a psychiatrist (Michael Ian Black), and he’s in bike shorts that “outline his penis” with Corddry doing his damnedest to ignore the impossible. It is so genuinely silly, I couldn’t resist laughing at it. It has no purpose towards the story of the film (what little there is) whatsoever and seemed like something thought of during the scriptwriting stage (and was probably also an excuse to get Black in the movie). There’s also the thick Italian accents the actors playing the warrior priests (one of them headbutts a do-goody “no-smoking please” local for trying to tell them that Louisiana indoor laws prohibit such activity!) lay on for all their worth that could amuse or seem a bit much considering whether or not you fall for the shtick. And yes, when the one priest says, “…this is where the girls a flash-ah their boobies, yeah?” I couldn’t help but grin (I tried, honestly, not to. It is the eye-rolling grin, though). I did like how the other priest referred to the beads provided to girls “flashing their perky breasts” as “fool’s gold”. Yeah, that’s the kind of comedy you are in for. But the nonsense with the old naked lady from the nursing home (the costume is far too noticeable; even if on purpose, it was just a bit too over the top for me personally) wanting a hug from Corddry, with LA Parish police insisting he cooperate, did nothing for me at all. I didn’t even want to include an image from it on the blog, I disliked it so much…saying that, this kind of ghastly stuff sended up for laughs will suit the fancy of those who embrace the warped bad taste this scene adheres to. This culminates in Corddry trying to pry the woman from him while she has her clawed fingers in a tough grip in the crack of his ass while the morons on patrol soon put her down with their stun guns before shocking each other for kicks and giggles! Absurd hi-jinks. “I’m gonna go wash all this old lady vagina off me.”

Oh, and much to your delight, we get a scene where the cops and priests enjoy the meal of po-boys….after viewing the crime scene of the psychiatrist, hammered to the wall of his office in the form of a crucifix with his entrails hanging out of his torn stomach. Lots of close-ups of eating, some farts and burps accompanying the approval of their meal with “Mmmms.” Yep. To continue the slob humor, there's a later scene where four are eating "pizza salad", the cops show up so show the photos of the psychiatrist gutted, and what commences is an all-out puke-out that reinforces the point that sometimes too much can stretch a joke until it just wears out its welcome. They puke. They puke again. And about four or five pukes later, the joke has reached its expiration date. There's only so much mileage you can get out of potty humor. Maybe some of you like that over and over, but after a while, I check out.

"I am so sick of being startled!!!"

The finale is what you might expect. The twins are born, one perfectly fine, the other the titular hellbaby with a ferocious bite that goes for the jugular. The two idiot cops, the two priests, Corddry and Bibb, the home-dwelling, never-leaving Keegan-Michael Key (with the very expressive face, always interrupting Corddry before he can be kicked out on his ass), and Bibb’s practicing-Wiccan sister Riki Lindhome (her character no good with men and staging a lengthy pot-smoking “house cleansing” that results in the house shaking “from the inside”; her stunning full body nude scene, which lasts for minutes much to my surprise and amazement, with an uncomfortable Corrdry is one of the film’s highlights) have to deal with hellbaby on the rampage. It takes out a few of them before Corddry puts that damned no-good lamp (with a short in light with a nasty bite that shocks him a couple times) to use in the end. One is actually shot; others are bit in the neck and leaving lots of bloodshed all over the place. A hellbaby, with little horns and small, sharp teeth, scurrying about and sprinting towards its victims, is a sight to behold. This whole ordeal punctuates the bonkers premise, and the cast respond with faces screaming and in terror (reactions that are comedic, not serious), before it ends with hellbaby scorching. Is it funny seeing a baby pummeled and fried, regardless of its evil ways? I must admit I was a bit uncomfortable and ill-at-ease with it, but the film was leading to it, so there you go. At least, we get to leave the film with the old batty lady that looks like a demented witch riding a bike…all’s well, that ends well.