Hell Baby

I wait-listed a ticket for this film at Sundance, knowing nothing about it. In line, I found out that it was a Thomas Lennon film. Awesome - huge fan. Starring Keegan Michael Key? You got me.

While there were lulls and dead spots, ultimately the movie was successful in making fun of common scary movie themes while simultaneously seeming original. It had me laughing much more often than it had me simply watching. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I will say that, aside the middle-aged woman sitting in front of me, the film had everyone engulfed and having fun.

I just found out the film got picked up, and I'm glad. It definitely deserves it. I just hope the suits don't cut out some of the more graphic scenes before its theatrical release.

Hilarious, gross, sexy, original, sometimes even genuinely scary, this film was nothing short of a quality horror film parody.

General movie rating - 6.5/10 Comedy Movie Rating - 8/10

It's clear from the get go that this is gonna be a silly film. It started to worry me early on that it may be too low brow for even my unrefined pallet, so I played a game of chicken with it and attempted to remain stone faced for as long as I could. As is often the case with this brand of brazen comedy, it certainly takes a lot of swings at humour, and many are bound to miss. Yet as I stared it down, it eventually got the best of me and managed to elicit a good chuckle from a handful of it's dumb jokes. The cast is a rather impressive lineup of familiar faces, most of them cracking a good line here and there while rarely crossing a threshold of irredeemable obnoxiousness. It doesn't win any points for creativity as it merely rehashes worn possession film tropes, and it's not even the first film to spoof the genre. But the comfortingly familiar horror elements do meld well with the goofy stoner humour, making for crude, unchallenging entertainment.

I was hesitant to put this one in for a while. Bad reviews and all. But a lot of people that I admire are in it. So today I finally watched it. (and I can watch very few movies these days since I am in the hospital for 5 weeks and only seldom get out (waiting for surgery)), well back to the movie. It's structured like a spoof but has an original actor and features most of L.A's stand up elite. (Some of the have already got their own TV Shows). Thomas Lennon not only has a huge part in this movie he also directed it and he did that very well. They had a limited budget but you can't tell the difference from a big studio in any way. The jokes were original and very well executed. Never does it stupe to the level of a Scary Moie 5 or Haunted House.I also loved the constant smoking by the two priests. Usually these days when someone smokes in a movie he's automatically a bad guy. I hate that. All the creature effects are done very well too, especially considering the budget. If you have a couple of extra buck be sure to pick up the Blu Ray.

I loved this movie. If you go in expecting some big budget plot driven parody you'll be disappointed. What you get is sketch based comedy where the absurd situations are purely reasons for the characters to improv some hilarious one liners. These guys can all deadpan with the best of 'em and the whole movie is played that way perfectly. Bonus love if you are from the south and familiar with Cajun cuisine and stereotypes. There is gore, over the top gore but the movie is not based around that nor does it derive it's comedy from the gross factor. I have no doubt that time will be kind to this movie and it will get cult status, there are so many great quotes for it not to have a long life. I hope it makes enough money so the writers and actors can make more improv based deadpan insanity.

This movie certainly does deserve more then the low ratings it has. I wanted to give it 6.5 but that's not possible so a 6 it is. I can see why people dislike it, because they probably expected something completely else but it is what it is. It's a parody of horror movies with some stupid jokes, and that's what it is supposed to be. The stupider they are the funnier it gets. As soon as I saw Keegan-Michael Key was in it I was skeptical because I absolutely hate him in the TV-show "Planet's funniest animals", but in this movie he was actually not that bad. I even laughed out loud a couple times. Don't expect horror or anything even though there are a lot of bloody gory scenes because it's all too funny to be scared. I don't regret watching this at all.