Dead Babies

It would be true to say that William Marsh's directorial debut pulls no punches. In fact shock tactics are deliberately played right from the word go. One of the first shots is of the alcoholic Giles' bloody teeth falling out one by one. From here on in the audience is left with little doubt that we're in for a bumpy ride. However, we end up being bombarded with so many scenes of drugs, violence, nudity and general depravity that one soon develops an immunity.

The plot centers around one hedonistic weekend where a bunch of directionless English graduates who inhabit a country mansion, are visited by three American friends (one of whom is played by Marsh himself) bent on supplying the perfect weekend of sex and drugs. It's kind of like watching a drugged-up version of Peter's Friends. The films' sub-plot involves a net based terrorist group known as The Conceptualists, who have somehow infiltrated the proceedings. It soon becomes clear that one of the revelers is not what they seem. However any intrigue, or indeed suspense, is dulled by our lack of empathy for the characters, who are either too larger-than-life to be believable or just totally un-likeable.

Dead Babies would no doubt like to be thought of in the same tradition as other drug fueled British cult classics such as Performance, Withnail and I, and Trainspotting. However, these films were far more character driven and weren't so heavily dependent on artificial means of stimulation.

A couple of days after writing about how garbage like MAD COWS and THIS FILTHY EARTH receive money while Ange , Duncan and Theo are totally ignored I had to sit through yet another British movie * that had me scratching my head as to why it received a single penny . Some people may claim that because DEAD BABIES is based upon a highly regarded novel it has an in built market but both THIS FILTHY EARTH and MAD COWS were also adapted from novels and they were an ordeal to sit through as well

I had read the synopsis of the plot where a bunch of high class wasters go to a remote mansion where they're stalked by an internet cult but to be honest this isn't really how the story unravels and anyone expecting Friday THE 13TH meets THE SHINING is going to be bitterly disappointed since 90-95% of the running time is taken up with said characters taking drugs and discussing sex . And what hateful characters they are too . Not one of them is likable in any way and within minutes you'll be getting nostalgic for Stalin , Mao and Pol Pot hoping that next time someone embarks on communist democide they'll be successful in creating an egalitarian utopia . Anything that will signal the end of such decadent bourgeois meaningless that the hateful characters in this movie embark upon can only be welcomed

Not content with giving us a movie where the plot is meandering and where the audience fail to connect with the characters the director continues to spoil things further by getting all clever and arty . No doubt that is to impress us so we will fall upon our knees and cry " Oh my god , what a wonderful director the way he bamboozles us with his highly artistic technique and only a worthless pleb will fail to appreciate what a god given talent this man is " . I'm sure the vast majority of people either screamed " How come my projects got turned down while crap like this didn't ? " or " WTF was the last half hour of this piece of crap all about ? " You might defend the movie by saying the original source novel was unfilmable and this makes the film unwatchable . I will agree that this movie is unwatchable

* I know the IMDb classes this as an American movie but the style and faults with DEAD BABIES is uniquely British . Americans might think they've got things tough with Bush but we've got Tony Blair , not to mention DEAD BABIES , MAD COWS and THIS FILTHY EARTH . No wonder everyone is ashamed to be British in the 21st century

Friends and I picked this up from the rental place because of the name, and Paul Bettany. It was just woeful. Shallow, terrible plot/character development, nothing whatsoever to encourage watching it. I thought it was trying the whole time to be edgy and Trainspotting-esquire, but it failed on the basic level of having no content worthy of giving up two hours of time. The characters were distasteful, but not in the way intended (ie. not because of clever writing, more because they were so badly written as to be insulting) We only got through it thanks to a full bottle of Smirnoff and Paul Bettany in a blue pinstripe suit. Just terrible.

Suffice to say that -- despite the odd ludicrous panegyric of your posted comment regarding "Dead Babies," one can only conclude that your animosity directed towards this little gem of a film is most likely due to your resemblance of one of the film's two utterly pathetic characters. "Giles"? Or are you more like "Keith"?

It's ironic to me the energy it must have taken to not only seek it out here, but its director's credits, as well as your clearly passionate opinions and suggestions -- "Avoid [it] like the plague," for a film you so revile.

I rented this movie from a Japanese video store. Because of my limited Kanji-reading skills, I took a chance because of the English cast (and, to a lesser-extent, the unusual title). Namely, Paul Bettany, who was brought to my attention to his unforgettable performance in "Gangster #1".

I played it for various English guests in an English-owned and operated youth hostel I manage in Los Angeles. With absolutely no idea what we had in store for us, we were thoroughly pleased, enjoying it from beginning to end. It successfully balanced unforgettable moments of both hilarity and horror, never an easy task and, more often than not, rarely achieved. More so, when its adapted from a popular novel.

So, what do you consider worthy? "Pulp Fiction"? Ha! Maybe something from Merchant Ivory? Do they even make films anymore? Probably not, what with the BFI producing such "rubbish" like "Dead Babies" which received by your fellow countryman (and women) well-deserved comparisons to stellar films such as "Trainspotting" and "Requiem For A Dream".

Instead of attacking everyone from the director to the British Film Industry (Regain its status?!? Lighten up, would ya?)why don't you advise what NOT to avoid. But what can one expect from someone who TRIES, and fails, to present himself as above all others by over-using his thesaurus using such "odious tosh" as "panegyric" and French phrases as "soi distant"! Who talks like this?

'Dead Babies' is perhaps of the shallowest of Martin Amis's novels: a vicious satirical attack on the smart set in 1970s London: wealthy, fashionable, drug-addled, and paranoid, it follows them through a desperate and debauched weekend. The book's tone is flippant, with the strong implication that the characters don't actually deserve any treatment more reverent; while the novel justifies its own existence through the outrageous comedy of its hyperbolic prose. But hyperbolic prose, and drug-fuelled hysteria, are two things hard to capture in film (think Terry Gilliam's disastrous adaptation of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for example). In his film of 'Dead Babies', director William Marsh uses the imagery of the modern video game, or pop video (something by the Progidy, perhaps, although this idea is maybe brought to mind merely by the presence of a grotesque character called Keith). This technique is less anachronistic than it might seem, as the setting is also updated to the present day, but unfortunately it's also familiar, and dull, in a way that the book's original prose never was: a collection of gross-out images set to techno. In places, flashes of Amis's humour shine through, but elsewhere the film seems amateurish. Amis's novels have always had a self-awareness that allows their author to get away with excesses that would otherwise be inexcusable; but this movie lacks the faint hint of self-mockery that help redeem the book. Finally, I haven't read the book for ages, but unless my memory is playing tricks on me, the ending was somewhat different the one we get in the film, which is also excessive, but futilely stupid in a way that the original writing never was.

I remain a big fan of Martin Amis, and I suspect that some (but not all) of his other books might potentially make more successful films than this one. But the path to adaptation is strewn with peril. In the case of 'Dead Babies', something is definitely lost in translation.