Baby Blood
It's time to feed the baby.
Year of Release: 1990
Genre: Horror
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 84 minutes (1:24)
Director: Alain Robak
Cast:
Emmanuelle Escourrou ... Yanka
Christian Sinniger ... Lohman
Jean-Francois Gallotte ... Richard
Roselyne Geslot ... Rosette, la caissiere du self
Francois Frappier ... Le premier camionneur / Leopard Deliveryman
Alain Robak ... Voix du monstre
Jennifer Lien ... Dubbed voice on English Language Version
Summary:
It is a voracious parasite from the dawn of creation, surviving centuries in search of the one thing it needs: To be born of a human. But when this cunning creature slithers inside a sexy circus performer, it demands gallons of fresh blood to grow stronger. Now this reluctantly expectant mommy and her chatty mutant fetus are off on a cross- country killing spree where pre-natal care means violent carnage, horny men make tasty meals, and the ultimate mother's milk is BABY BLOOD!
Review:
Baby Blood, reminding all of us that nothing breaks up a would be gang rape quite like havin' a dungeness crab monster with tentacles latch onto your bus driver an start suckin' the brain goo out of 'im while he's goin' 80 down the autoroute. All the sudden everybody remembers their manners an start blubberin' like Chris Crocker. Liberals love the movie cause the evil dictator fetus is pretty much the way they view the entire pro life crowd with the whole "birth me outta here right now cause if you don't I'ma give you uteran cramps like somebody's usin' your baby factory for a trampoline everytime you think about your options" attitude. Course, that's exactly why the GOP likes it, too, so it's kinda weird. But enough about who likes it. Pediatricians hate it. Ever try watchin' this thing with a pediatrician? Every five minutes they jump up on the couch, mouth frothin', arms outstretched in an accusatory fashion towards the TV set screamin' things like "that's not how it works!" or "where the HELL'D you go to med school?!" Then they start pullin' out their hair in clumps til they look like Larry Fine an start speakin' in tongues til you end up havin' to smother 'em with the couch cushions so they won't have a cardiac event an so you can rewind the tape to catch all the critical plot points you just missed while they were screamin' like a lunatic that's high on DPH an can't get the spiders off of 'em. Don't watch Junior with 'em either. For that matter, just don't watch Junior at all, even if you're being held at gunpoint. Anyway, the French were kind enough to shoot this one an send it over to us as an apology for their women refusin' to shave their armpits, an I've gotta say, this is about the nicest thing they've done for us since they helped us get away from those pasty, tea drinkin', no tax representin' Brits so we could start taxin' ourselves with no representation, so lets show some gratitude for once. First thing you're gonna wanna deduce from this one's the fact that you can walk around the streets of France lookin' like Sissy Spacek at the climax of Carrie an nobody'll notice. I'm pretty sure this is why the mafia set up shop right next door. Second, French truck drivers'll just dive right into their life stories if you're dumb enough to get into the truck with 'em. An they'll tell you every intimate detail of that life too, so make sure it's REALLY worth the ride. Lastly, an this is an important one for women everywhere, monsters that look a lot like a two foot string of uncut sausage links got no respect for your hoo-ha an they'll sneak right up in there while you're sleepin' or readin' a romance novel, so I'd suggest gettin' a chastity belt or puttin' the club on that thing just to be on the safe side. An I don't wanna hear any of that "it can't happen to me" attitude, cause I think that perspective's been pretty well wiped out by those ABC afterschool specials they used to air instead of cartoons where all the actors were about 22 pretendin' to be 14.
Something that's been buggin' me about this one though is the way nobody disciplines their kids anymore. I'm bein' completely serious here. This little yard monster's not even outta the WOMB yet, an he's runnin' Emmanuelle Escourrou's life like she's a John Deere ridin' lawn mower. The little parasite's demanding blood for nourishment, an he tells her who to kill, when to kill 'em, an when to get outta dodge cause she's siphoned too much plasma outta too many smarmy Frenchmen. When she doesn't get a handle on this little shit right outta the chute an put her foot down, you know he's got her, an that she's gonna be another one of those dead eyed Mombies shufflin' down the frozen food section while the little crustacean horror's screamin' about wantin' more krill an how our species is sicknin' for keepin' all these relatives of his frozen in cardboard ice tombs just waitin' to be fried up. Now I get that the little bastard can start twistin' her insides into balloon animals if it don't get what it wants, but there's things she can do too, she's not helpless like the movie wants her to appear. She can go underwater an stay under there til the little sombitch thinks she's gonna drown an put the fear of Mom into 'im. She can poke a syringe into the umbilical cord an force 'im to drink Keystone Light, or hop on one of those Roundabout toys an spin around til it gets so sick it spends the next two days pukin', or you can threaten to let Audrey Edmunds babysit once it's out. She FEELS helpless, but she really isn't. But with kids, if you don't put the kibosh on that the first time, you're screwed for life as any kind of authority figure. So I say this to you expecting parents (cause the people that already got kids are already screwed), take charge, or take orders. Your call.
The movie begins with scenes of volcanic eruptions with somebody narratin' about how in the beginnin' the planet was a real shit hole, but that eventually as things got a little more tolerable life started to take off. But not so much for the narrator, despite the fact that it only needs one thing. It'd trade it all, it'd give it ALL away for one thing. Just for one thing. To be born of a human. Without that, this shithole planet's still a cesspool. Next thing we see we're in Africa where we've got this native guy who's so scared he's startin' to look whiter'n the target demographic at a Type O Negative concert. He's tryin' to warn this stupid white guy about whatever's in the point-of-view creature's cage, but white people generally only listen to native populations when they know where there's gold or somethin', so whitey loads the cargo up in one of them overseas tupperware containers an sends it back to France. Some time later, the cargo's delivered to a circus an the delivery boy starts peekin' in at the star attraction (Yanka) while she's changin' her clothes til her angry euro trash boyfriend (Lohman) shows up an just about unscrews his head like a Snapple cap til he can explain that he's there with a delivery. So after the jerk verbally abuses the girl for awhile he gathers all his flunkies together so they can unload the cargo an the gangly wimp of a delivery boy runs off so he can do The Creep on the girl some more. But when you consider she's preggers with the jerk's little carny you can imagine her judgement's not exactly sound, an she tells the guy he can come watch the rehearsal that night before she goes to look at the new cat they've brought in. Then the jerk tells her to bugger off cause her womanness is upsettin' the leopard. Later that night, Sigfried or Roy (I can't tell 'em apart) head into the tiger cage an start whippin' the tigers so they'll do stupid, undignified tricks until the day they finally snap an tear 'im up like a gazelle. Yanka's part of the act too but she's late in more ways than one, an when Lohman gets ahold of her he has to choke her a little to compensate for his little Lohman an shoves her in the cage with the trainer. The tigers seem more nervous than they were during game 4 of the 2012 World Series, an pretty quick one tries to eat her face an she has to squirm outta there an go make out with the wimp delivery boy til he hears Lohman comin' an peels her offa him like an old bandaid so he can make a run for it. Then Lohman slaps her around some more an puts her to bed so he can go sit at his desk an reminisce about slappin' her around. But shortly afterwards he hears a noise outside an goes out to find jungle cat goo oozin' outta its cage an the trainer huddlin' in the duck an cover position like a 5th grader in an earthquake drill.
He says she just exploded like a Texas fertilizer plant an that somethin' shot outta there like a patriot missile. So Lohman rallies the carnies an while they go out lookin' for the thing, a two foot long string of unclipped sausage drops in through Yanka's sunroof an tunnels up her access port an curls up inside her uterus. About that time Lohman hears her extremely confused noises an goes to check on her, but by the time he gets there she's gone back to sleep. The next mornin', Yanka starts lookin' around at what a revoltin' development her life's become ever since she dropped outta ITT technical institute an decides to pack up an start over. So she packs a bag, leaves Lohman a dear fuckface letter (that's when you don't leave one at all) an catches the next train. One month later, Lohman's in a taxi where the driver's talkin' about Yanka cause he's tired of how only the passengers get to spill their guts on Taxi Cab Confessions an once they arrive at her last known place of residence Lohman throws a few francs at 'im an tells 'im to bugger off. Before long he's standin' at her front door, but she's got a surprise waitin' for 'im, an when he steps inside to deliver his standard "things're gonna be different this time" speech she starts shankin' 'im like a member of the Aryan Brotherhood that got caught buyin' drugs from the Mexican Mafia. Then she starts talkin' to herself like a paranoid schizophrenic sayin' she don't wanna finish the job til Lohman yanks off her entire outfit (a bathrobe) cause she's gettin' baby fat an her underpants don't fit no more an she runs off while an unseen voice tells her she'd better do what it says or it'll give 'er menstrual cramps like somebody put jacks inside her uterus an used her for a pinata. She still ain't moved by mornin', an while she's tryin' to pull her bathrobe out from under Roy "Death of a Circus Man" Lohman the disembodied voice is tellin' her it's thirsty an it needs a plasma donation an that if she don't get it a refill it's gonna bust outta her like John Hurt in Alien an do the bossa nova all over her corpse. Eventually she gives in after it makes 'er roll around on the floor in agony like she ate at Amy's Baking Company an she's able to get up an go Norman Bates on the corpse while she screams like Rosie O'Donnell gettin' a lip waxin'. When she awakens, the voice (I can't believe she's gone this long without givin' this little guy a name. He needs a name, lets call 'im... Vlad) tells her they've gotta get outta there, like, yesterday cause the authorities're gonna descend on 'em like they're Edward Snowden any minute now; so she packs up, heads outside, an before she can get movin' spots a rummy catchin' a nap in a pile of La Parisiens an Vlad starts lickin' his... well his gums I guess, ain't got any teeth yet.
Yanka don't wanna do it, so she does a belly buster into the pond next to the street to scare Vlad into shittin' himself. The next mornin' while she's dryin' off, Vlad tries talkin' sense to her so she'll quit practicin' her deadman float when a truck driver pulls up an offers 'em a ride. En route, he tells her all about how he used to be gay but had to switch cause nobody'd ever use lube an his rectum started lookin' like somebody lit it on fire an beat out the flames with a cheese grater (I'm not making most of this up). Then when he pulls over for gas he spots two positively repulsive women down the street an sends Yanka inside while he loads 'em up an ditches her. Vlad tells her that's how it goes when you're a single pregnant woman. And Vlad is correct. So Yanka goes to work as a waitress. All the while this balding letch won't quit eyein' her groceries, an eventually follows her downstairs where the lights go out an he hits the floor like a Nam vet when you sneak up on 'em an yell "INCOMING!" Seriously though, don't do that, there's a good chance you'll be mashed into tartar sauce. When the lights come on it's the letch's girlfriend who also works at the diner, an he has to pretend like he lost a contact lens an that he definitely was not floppin' around like a goldfish that hopped outta the koi pond, an they go. Vlad's disappointed, so Yanka goes street walkin' an rears back every few seconds with a belly laugh. Either Vlad's tellin' great jokes that we're not privy to or she's tryin' to catch rain in her mouth. Either way, Vlad tells 'er to head into a restaurant, after which the letch comes in an she lets 'im sit with 'er. So the weenie starts layin' on the charm like she's an American woman that's too stupid to realize that French guys're full of it, an Vlad tells 'er she aughta bed this guy so he can grab ahold of his scrotum an twist it like a bendy straw. After dinner they head back to Yanka's place, but she turns to ice an sends 'im on his way an starts yellin' at Vlad about how he don't even care that she keeps havin' to endure lousy sex just so he can keep gettin' Bloody Murrays mixed up for 'im. The next day they head out again lookin' for some more baby formula an when Vlad finds one he likes Yanka puts a switchblade right in the guy's neck, only about that time the door to the train station flies open an she has to push the guy up against the wall an pretend like they're just dry humpin' so nobody'll think anything weird's happenin'. Once they've gone she drops 'im like Allstate dropped the Hurricane Sandy victims an watches 'im spaz out on the ground like a macaque havin' a seizure.
Later on, there's 125lbs of sexual fury in Yanka's bedroom once she finally opens for business with the pasty wimp from the diner, an afterwards she gets dressed, heads into the kitchen, an lights up. Vlad is P.O.'d, an starts readin' off the surgeon general's warning about what can happen to babies whose mothers smoke an that if she don't want 'im to chew through her uterine lining an give 'er a Cleveland Steamer she'd better get with the program. By now, Yanka's about had it with Vlad's self-preservation attempts an picks up a kitchen knife an threatens to go all Juliet right on the kitchen table if he don't back off. About that time the wimp in tightie whities walks in an tells Yanka he wants to marry her cause she's hotter than his current girlfriend an after thinkin' about spendin' her life with this Oscar Meyer wiener she turns the knife around an starts perforatin' his bowels til there's a knock at the door. It's the wiener's girlfriend, an while she proceeds to blame Yanka for everything she starts lookin' around for the tool til she finds 'im reachin' over the fridge door lookin' for a snack. She realizes instantly that he's in serious need of some stomach staples an that she'd better hurry if she's gonna get 'im patched up so he'll still be alive an able to hear 'er yellin' at 'im. Yanka's outta there. She's off like a used condom, and we see nothing more of her for six months. Next thing we see, some douchey dork in a Mr. Rogers sweater's hangin' out at the horse track tryin' to pickup women with his Jerry Lewis impression til closin' time, an on his way home he's accosted by two Euro-trash punks that hassle 'im til he throws his money up in the air an hops in a cab before they can club 'im to death with stale French bread. Unfortunately, Yanka's in the driver's seat, an she has to elbow the geek right in the schnoz when he starts bein' a backseat driver an she don't want 'im to see this next part anyway. In an instant she whips the car around an drives up on the sidewalk so she can make like David Carradine in Death Race 2000 an score some points for manglin' a jogger. Only the jogger's too dumb to run for it an gropes around blindly like a teenager on prom night til she comes around for a second pass an squishes 'im into pink slime an then gets out an starts beatin' 'im with a hammer til the feeb in the backseat wakes up an starts screamin' like Jamie Lee Curtis an tryin' to run away on all fours cause he's not usually able to get his spare tire vertical on the first try an he can't risk face plantin' on a concrete now that Yanka knows he's conscious. Eventually he regains verticality, but he's only got eyes for Yanka an moments later he gets strained right through the grille of a moving van an sucked into the radiator. Might as well scrap that thing now, you never get argyle out of an engine.
The next day, Vlad starts askin' her what kinda guys she's into an... kinda wanderin' into Oedipus territory here aren't we? Anyway, she likes miserable guys. Which is what most women like and why they wanna get married as quickly as possible. That's what they mean when they say they wanna "change" him, by the way. But anyway, Vlad says it won't be long now before he's ready to make his grand exit, only Yanka's been dreamin' about arms bustin' outta her belly, an when she wakes up she realizes she left the discman playin' an the car battery's deader than Aaron Hernandez' NFL career. So she goes to work on the nearest car she can find, when a helpful mechanic notices a woman tryin' to work on a car, an once he's able to stop rollin' on the ground weeping with laughter at the notion he gets up an offers to help, but then realizes she's either extremely pregnant or just gas filled after eatin' at Taco Bell an flags down a taxi to get her to the hospital. Course she can't have that, so she grabs the good Samaritan an steers the car into a brick wall so she can crawl out an stumble down the street til she blacks out. When she wakes up, the Queen of England's got her laid out on a sofa an starts tellin' her all about what's gonna happen when Vlad finally decides to squirm outta her, which is so horrifyin' she has to grab the phone cord an strangle the old hag an try to forget about all that talk of havin' her Y incision turn into the 100 meter gash.
Afterwards, she heads out to the park an tries to talk to Vlad, but he's givin' her the silent treatment. At least til this punk kid walks up an fires a cap gun in her face an really pisses Vlad off cause these elementary school fucks got no respect for nap time. So, since he's up anyway, they go for a walk, an Vlad tells 'er he needs to return to his natural element, which is the sea, obviously. I mean, he came out of a leopard in central Africa an slithered up a woman's porthole so clearly that doesn't require any exposition. Then Vlad starts havin' second thoughts about bein' off on his own an only seein' Yanka when he needs to do his laundry, so he figures they need to get one more meal together for old time's sake. So Yanka grabs the little dipshit's cap gun an commandeers a blood mobile, turns up about a pint of blood from an IV bag while it's still attached to the guy donatin', an gets her motor runnin' so she can head out on the highway. Baby's first road trip, to the sea. But en route she finds her eyes're stayin' open about as well as a sex shop in Tehran, so Vlad elaborates about that whole sea thing a little more to keep 'er from killin' 'em both. He's gonna head out into the sea, evolve, an in about 5 billion years when the sun poops out his species should be good an evolved so they can take over the planet. Unfortunately, the guy that was givin' blood earlier just kinda got forgotten like Jeffrey Jones' child porn incident an the guy stumbles up the aisle an flops down right onto Yanka's steerin' arm an causes 'er to wreck the bus even worse than the plastic surgeons wrecked Mike Jeffries' face. Is Yanka's head mashed into melted popsicle juice? Will she ever be able to get her license back? Can Vlad still make it to the nude beaches of France? And if he does, will he give up on the ocean entirely and recoil in terror? Watch for yourself, I'll never tell. Unless of course there's money involved.
Alright, first of all I apologize for the length on that thing, but if you've ever seen horror movies made in Europe, you know they get right on with it an don't slow down under any circumstances. They've got stuff happening all the time, back to back, fast an furious. I think it's to try to see if they can make people sit through the entire movie without pausin' it to go to the bathroom. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just different from North American cinema. The one problem you can run into while attempting to do what the Europeans tended to do back then with their horror movies was, in trying to create as much action as possible, they ended up completely neglecting the character development to the point that you didn't give a shit about anybody. Baby Blood finds a way around that by only having one character that actually matters. You CAN have back to back, never gonna stop sequences if you've only got one character to familiarize people with. Pretty sneaky. So this movie actually succeeds in the character development department where other European horror movies like Anthropophagus fail. Even Friday the 13th can get some degree of separation from the various camp counselors so you know which one is which. Anyway, with the plot centered around Emmanuelle Escourrou an the tentacle crab baby, everything works really smoothly. Also, an this is something you almost never see, this movie's got excellent dubbing. The dubbing is so natural it sounds like they filmed in English. This is really just icing on the cake. I try not to be too hard on movies that're dubbed into English because, afterall, I always have the option to watch in the native language and read sub titles. Just two problems with that, one; fuck that, and two I take a lot of notes during the movie and while I can't always be seeing what's on the screen, at least I can hear it if it's in English. Couldn't care less if the mouth movements match, all that matters is that the dialog sounds natural. If you've ever seen a Godzilla movie, you know what I'm talking about. On its own it's not really *that* important, but when you see little things like that, that they didn't really have to do but did anyway, it genuinely counts for something. Anyway, I won't claim to be a real expert on Eurohorror at this juncture, but I will say that this is one of the best that I've seen to date.
Okay, lets practice our Lamaze, try not to poop ourselves, an see what we can force out. The plot's nuttier than the psych ward at Gitmo, but it's aware of it and never loses sight of the fact, and while certain aspects may not be completely original, the devil's in the details and I think they did enough with the small things to come up with a pretty interesting story. I mean, Rosemary's Baby certainly stands out as an obviously similar plotline, but when you get into the specifics, they're quite a bit different. It's Alive would be another example. I think it's the open line of communication between the fetus and Emmanuelle Escourrou that makes it so different. Plus it's about 100x faster paced than Rosemary's Baby. Overall, a very interesting and entertaining plot. The acting's pretty good as well, and this is where the good dubbing really helps, because there are certainly those that might be inclined to lump bad dubbing into the acting category when rating the performances. For all I know, the actors may have read their lines like shit in their native language, but really that doesn't even matter, and I'm inclined to think that because the movie did have a reasonable sized budget, that that's probably not the case. The Anchor Bay release has a few previously unreleased scenes edited back into the movie for the first time ever in North America, and the reason I mention that is because those scenes were never dubbed and so appear in French with English subtitles. Pretty hilarious dialog too; I think I can see why they cut it, it's really amusing and doesn't match the tone of the rest of the movie. But the point is that those scenes, while they may have some really odd dialog, don't seem poorly acted. Anyway, good acting. And if you're wondering why I don't have the cast's cinematic credits listed here like I normally would, it's because the majority of those credits are in French and I can't read them and I'm not nearly fond enough of you to run them all through a translator.
The special effects are undoubtedly the high point, and you're probably banking on that when you watch a movie with "blood" in the title. Not a whole lot of variety though; got a couple guys that get the classic kitchen knife to the guts, a massacred leopard (though it's a night shot an difficult to see), the switch blade in the neck, a jogger that gets manslaughtered vehicularly, a dork that gets free busfare by ridin' in the grille, the nightmare sequence where two arms reach outta Emmanuelle Escourrou lookin' for daylight, and of course, Vlad the dungeness crab monster baby. I think what they lack in originality with so many stabbing deaths they make up for in the volume of blood used. This movie may well be bloodier than The Evil Dead, so it's got that going for it. The special effects are pretty good though. Nice murders, a cool monster, no complaints here. The shooting locations probably get free points on account of my bein' an uncultured American that gives credit just because it's something I've not seen that often. At least when they're shooting in the run down French ghetto areas, those were pretty good. The regular city shots though, those do nothing for me, be they foreign or domestic. The soundtrack, I've gotta be honest, I can't remember a damn thing about it. Pretty unprofessional, I realize, but we can at least determine that if I cannot remember it, it wasn't bad. Bad soundtracks stick in the craw pretty severely when you feel like the scenes are being ruined on their account. So if there was one, I'd say it was at least decent and not inappropriate, although I can't say it did much to stick out. I blame all the damn plot, I didn't have enough time to pay attention to everything like I should have. Bottom line, I shouldn't have had to read about this one in John Stanley's Creature Features Movie Guide. I'm glad I did, of course, but if you're not familiar with Stanley's book, it's a beast. It's almost 500 pages long and contains 5600 (admittedly short) movie reviews in it. This movie should have more notoriety than it does, it's better than a whole lot of other horror movies from that era that have much greater popularity. But now, I'm doing my part to help with that, so check it out.
Rating: 72%