Baby Blood

"Baby Blood" follows a downtrodden circus performer, Yanka, who finds herself carrying a mysterious parasite that has entered her uterus against her will. Now, she's eating for two, but not the usual meals— the parasite craves human blood, and will stop at nothing to make sure it gets it.

Given the tendency of French cinema to err on the side of the extreme (especially when it comes to genre films), it's no surprise that "Baby Blood" is as unabashedly gruesome as it is. For all of its other attributes, the film is, at its core, a gross-out body horror splatter flick that delivers mind-numbingly gruesome violence that manages to be legitimately discomforting at times. The film also plays itself as something of a first-person slasher film as well, with the caveat being that the "killer" is operating by proxy.

But there's more to it than that; there is also a well-shaped psychological dimension to the film that is captured effectively through macabre voice overs in which the parasite inhabiting the protagonist's womb speaks within her mind, commanding her moves and actions and chastising her when she doesn't do what it wants. The interplay between the mind, the body, and the invader is well-realized and offers opportunity for scenes that are unnerving and scenes that are darkly funny. Emmanuelle Escourrou gives an instinctive and engrossing performance here that is impressive given she is reacting mainly to herself.

Overall "Baby Blood" is a generally strong horror flick that excels as both an exercise in psychological torment as well as a no-holds-barred body horror splatter flick. Shades of dark humor and a playful edge give the film an extra bit of zest, but it doesn't even really need it, as there is enough clever writing and buckets of blood to keep the most hardened horror fans engaged on some level. 8/10.

'Baby Blood' is a superb overlooked French horror movie that deserves a much wider audience. The beautiful and voluptuous Emmanuelle Escourrou stars as a circus performer who is impregnated by some kind of mutant monster. On the run, her unborn "child" begins to speak to her and demands blood - lots of it. Reluctantly she complies by murdering men she encounters. Eventually she develops a strange love/hate relationship with the monster within her.

This is a brilliantly entertaining variation on the killer baby theme (see 'The Unborn' and 'It's Alive'), with plenty of gore and nudity from the stunning Escourrou. I say steer clear of the American dubbed version as it is cut. 'Baby Blood' is one of the most underrated horror movies of the last twenty years. I thought it was a classic piece of exploitation and I can't recommend it highly enough!

Here's an interesting concept;; Alien like pregnancy with a woman instead of the John Hurt character in that overrated bore fest. The unfortunate baby host is Yanka(Emmanuelle Escourrou). A reptile sort of creature wanders into her uterus and has a thirst for blood. The good mother travels from village to village, killing anyone available to feed her growing fetus's voracious need for plasma in order to grow into a really large and dangerous monster.

The little one is very verbose, having funny conversations with its' host. Yanka is sexy and often naked, which adds to the entertainment value this atmospheric thriller. Baby blood provides buckets of the red stuff, as expected, and I thought that the acting and script were pretty good for this genre.

The director, Alain Roback, has an eye for detail and a sense of humor. The talking baby is a different twist, and it works in Baby Blood.

This Gallic horror oddity sees an ancient parasitic embryo burst out of its circus animal host in order to impregnate a big-breasted, gap toothed strumpet named Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou), who is then compelled by the creature to kill ugly French men (in order to feed her new 'baby' blood—hence the title).

Baby Blood is certainly quite splattery, with a lot of the red stuff splashed around and the occasional moment of graphic dismemberment, but even with the high gore content, I found the movie rather tedious in places, due to some rather drawn out and uneventful scenes between the visceral stuff. The story is way too simple to be stretched over feature length and needed more depth in order to fully hold this viewers attention.

Director Alain Robak shows some flair for the visuals (in fact, the opening scenes reminded me a bit of Peter Jackson's directorial style), but his treatment of the story—an uneasy mix of horror and bizarrely comic moments— ends up making the film feel disjointed. Had the film been either totally serious in tone or more outrageously silly, it might have impressed me more. As it stands, it all seems a little awkward in style.

On the plus side, the gore effects are well handled (lots of stabbing, a beheading, a head smashed in) and the Lovecraftian creature, seen towards the end of the film, is an impressively original looking critter—all slimy and pink, with moist quivering bits (which, for some strange reason, has reminded me to mention that star Emmanuelle Escourrou spends a lot of her time with her kit off!).

French cinema isn't exactly known for its many horror masterpieces (the exceptions that prove this rule are "Les Yeux Sans Visage" and the more recent "Haute Tension") but, as much as in every other country, there are always some gore-loving genre fanatics that sooner or later direct their own independent cult gem. Alain Robak clearly is such an enthusiast filmmaker and his "Baby Blood" is a hugely entertaining and cheerful splatterfest, despite the poor and inept screenplay. The relatively unknown but impressively voluptuous Emmanuelle Escourrou (what's in a name) stars as the unhappy fiancée of a circus artist who gets impregnated by a parasite that burst out a newly imported cheetah. The fetus growing inside Yanka is pure evil and demands her to kill men so that it can feed on their blood. This results in some of the most over-the-top bloody and sadistic massacres ever shot on film, with cut off heads, slit throats and many outrageous knife-attacks. Of course, this exaggerated amount of bloodshed makes it all blackly comical and "Baby Blood" therefore shouldn't be taken too seriously. This isn't the fist horror film handling about ferocious fetuses/infants (there's also "It's Alive", "I don't want to be Born" and even the premise of "Rosemary's Baby" is remotely similar) but "Baby Blood" is much more creative and tongue-in-cheek than anything you've ever seen before. The camera-work is quite nifty and there are several cameos of eminent Frenchmen, like Jacques Audiard (director of "Read My Lips") and Alain Chabat (who played Caesar in "Asterix"). The script is very man-unfriendly, which is quite a new approach for exploitation! Nearly every male is presented as a weak and imbecile creature whereas Yanka gets stronger with every murder she commits. "Baby Blood" is ingenious, somewhat bizarre horror fun.