I can abide low production values provided a feature bears substance and reflects earnest care and hard work; some amateur horror is genuinely outstanding. The humble appearance of this flick is particularly difficult to bear, however, since the direction feels almost indifferent and lackadaisical, and the imagery to present doesn't particularly say "modest means but sincere effort" so much as "no budget, no worries, no one will watch it anyway." I can't speak to the source material of Hino Hideshi, but I do recognize that there are splendid ideas on hand as an expecting father and struggling writer has fears about how his child will turn out. Plenty of other titles have explored this space, but that doesn't inherently mean Nakamura Yoshihiro's piece had any less potential on that basis.
Regrettably, I find that 'Lizard baby' has a hard time passing muster. The concept is there, yet it almost comes across from the outset that no one was especially applying themselves. Maybe this was a limitation of the production, and with more time and resources the result would have shined. All the same, I've seen more achieved with less. The least that can be said is that the actors ably play their parts, and try as they can given what they had to work with. Though the audio is imbalanced and the music a tad too forthright, it does ably lend to the mood of the proceedings. And the picture surely finds more strength in the latter half of the diminutive runtime as the bizarrerie grows, innately fostering some oblique sinister vibes while the plot develops further. The result isn't altogether bad, and there actually is some minor ingenuity in the story we're given - a tale of madness with a discrete psychological edge.
Nonetheless, there were distinct upper limits to the resources at Nakamura's disposal, and there were obvious and even more unfortunate upper limits to how much the folks involved were apparently willing to commit themselves to their own movie. It's twisted and enjoyable, and the back end is sufficiently well done that I want to like the entirety more than I do. Would that 'Lizard baby' didn't make such a poor first impression, nor that this impression endured to one degree or another throughout the remainder. The sum total is passable enough to merit checking out on a quiet night if you're curious, but definitely don't go out of your way for it, and keep your expectations low, and maybe that's the best way to get the most out of it.
