The Mother

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.

The team that created this movie did an amazing job! This was a jarring thriller, from beginning to end. It is one of those rare movies that horror lovers like me wait for but so rarely find. Be warned though. The violence in this movie become extremely graphic at times. I was truly surprised that the director had the guts to take it as far as he did.

The story begins simply enough. The movie opens by introducing us to a young family no different than many in the heartland of middle America. The hard-working father is a long-haul trucker whose job takes him away from his family for longer stretches of time than he'd like. He and his wife have four children, the youngest only a few months old. By all accounts it seems to be a loving family. The misfortune develops as the mother's mental stability begins to break down after the birth of her last child. She begins experiencing auditory and visible hallucinations just as her husband is preparing to leave for another road trip. He's a loving father, but distracted by the demands of caring for a growing family. The oldest son, who is about twelve, tries to tell his father that the mother is not well. But the dad is too worn out to absorb the reality of his wife's impending mental breakdown.

If you can't get past the horrifying concept of a mother turning against her family, this is not the movie for you. But if you want to suspend reality for a while and jump on a terror-filled ride to hell, you've found what you are looking for!

This film may remind The Night of the Hunter, not only because of the same theme of a kid fighting an adult and trying to protect siblings, but also for the quality of suspense, directing and acting.

There are differences. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is a dangerous fanatic, who is after money. He is full of hate, but not completely insane. So, Colleen Porch, excellent as the mother affected by baby blues, is more to compare to Jack Torrance in The Shining, or the woman in À L'Intérieur (Inside). You can feel the same progression of their tormented mind until the irreversible point where schizophrenia takes over and they plunge into madness.

The frightening atmosphere and violence of Haute Tension (High Tension) is also there. Corn fields at night have been used in many films, and here again in a scary chase. There are in fact, many individual elements that have been seen elsewhere, such as Mom breaking the door with a chopper, similar to Jack using an axe in The Shining, and more that I will let you identify easily. But it would be a mistake to think that the director/writer has just stolen ideas from other films of this category. He has made a terrific job, because more than in many of these films, the story is actually believable. It says during the opening that it is based on actual events. It is possible, even if it cannot be the exact story as shown in the film.

For all those who enjoyed the masterpieces of terror that I mentioned, and to which it can be compared, I strongly suggest to watch it.

Like many horror fans, I spend a lot of time wading through the proverbial garbage that saturates the genre, in search of those hidden gems. BABY BLUES is just such a find. Beautiful cinematography, a tight script, and some really solid performances make for a terrifying journey into a child's worst nightmare. My biggest question is, why has it taken me so long to find this flick? It seems to have completely slipped under the radar. This film is 10 times better the most theatrically released horror films. If you are a horror fan, or just a fan of great independent cinema, I strongly recommend you check this out!

Surprisely a great movie. I never expect good movie that I find in a 4 packs but I can't believe how good this was. It's the quintessential mother vs. son horror. This movie reminded me a lot of AmityVille Horror in a sense. A little boy fights to survive and protect his siblings when his mother has a psychotic break.