A long haul trucker hits the road just as his wife is in the throes of a psychotic break due to postpartum depression. Now left alone with their mother, the oldest son must attempt to protect his three siblings and escape their isolated farmhouse.
What a discovery! It's hard to believe that I hadn't heard of Baby Blues before renting it on a whim last October. This is a disturbing film with some intense imagery. The first 30 minutes are especially rattling, as we are treated to an all too realistic portrait of a mental breakdown. One particularly effective scene sees the mother sitting in a daze as she imagines heinous sounds emanating from the baby monitor in place of her baby's actual crying. The film eventually turns more towards a slasher type scenario, only with kids as the victims instead of the typical teenagers. Not to say that it gets less disturbing, it actually doesn't. The kills get under your skin, especially the first one we're witness to involving the sharp point of a mirror.
Colleen Porch is fantastic as the mother, never taking things over the top, something that easily could have happened. The kids are good too, all perfectly believable as normal children in a terrible situation that they don't fully understand. There's a scene where the mother attempts to drown her daughter in the bathtub, the whole thing made more effective by the reaction of the girl's brother in the background, a reaction that rang very true to me.
This isn't a film for everyone. It is often hard to watch due to the unnerving nature of what unfolds on the screen. For others like myself who prefer to feel something when watching a horror film, this is one that you won't want to miss. It's exceptionally well done.
