Baby Blues

Title: Baby Blues
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Unknowns

It's very rare that a premise alone is enough to make me drool in anticipation, but the trailer of this film left me yearning to see what could potentially be the most disturbing and indeed horrific movie I've seen in years. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

This film is inspired by the cruel and horrific acts purpotrated by mothers who were said to be suffering from severe post-partem depression.

The film begins on a sunny day, with a family living on a farm, children playing in the sun, and their mother ominously comforting her infant in her bedroom. The husband spends much of his time working, and rarely has any time to spend alone with his kids, let alone his clearly distraught wife. After he leaves for another night on the road, the mother's instability teeters over the edge, causing her to put her own children in mortal danger.

It's hard to say where exactly this film went wrong. The acting is mostly above-par, and the look of the film is excellent for such a low-budget. The biggest problem is in the lack of suspense. Whenever there is supposed to be a shocking reveal, or a horrific moment, rather than accentuating them, the film seems to almost skim over them, as if they're nothing out of the ordinary. Also, for such a short film (clocking in at a brisk 1 hour 17 minutes), the second half seems to drag, as if they'd already run out of ideas. Which is strange, as any genre fan could clearly see a dozen or more missed opportunities that could have made for a much more entertaining and fulfilling plot.

Another problem with later scenes is that the believability gets lower and lower, not necessarily due to the events and actions taking place, but rather the acting and behaviour of many of the characters, likely due more to the script than the actors themselves. The mother seems all over the place mentally, while her actions are clearly single minded, and the characters in the final scene seem to almost shrug off the events of the last 45 minutes as though they were no big deal.

Yet another disappointing aspect was that of gore. Not to give away any major plot points, but the deaths are all very quick, and most often the only sign of injury is a fairly small amount of blood. This was more than likely due to budgetary constraints, though it is possible that much of the gore was edited out, which would account for both the shortness of the violent scenes, and the shortness of the overall running time.

Finally, this picture wasn't nearly dark enough to work with the subject matter at hand, but rather felt like a standard slasher, with an unusually horrific premise. If this had been handled by the director of "A l'interieur", it would quite possibly have been the most unsettling and brutal film to date. But as it stands, this is a mildly enjoyable, though deeply flawed, bargain bin slasher.