Blu Ray/DVD Review: The Lame HELL BABY Can't Scare Up Legitimate Laughs

Out now on Blu ray and DVD:

HELL BABY

(Dirs. Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon, 2013)

The genre of comedy horror movies has a very sketchy history. For every gem of spooky spoofery like Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, you get decades of duds including the SCARY MOVIE series, SATURDAY THE 14TH, NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CLASS REUNION, CLUB DRED, the “Chucky” franchise, and this year’s Marlon Wayons atrocity A HAUNTED HOUSE.

Now we can add Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon’s HELL BABY to the pile of dreck in the gross-out genre. Garant and Lennon, best known for the ‘90s MTV sketch show The State, and the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, co-wrote the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM movies, as well as such multiplex fodder as HERBIE: FULLY LOADED and the Jimmy Fallon vehicle TAXI.

Now, I don't want to dismiss Garant and Lennon as just high paid hacks, but it says a lot that they wrote a book together entitled “Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at The Box Office and You Can Too!”

HELL BABY, Lennon’s first outing as co-director (Garant previously helmed 2007’s RENO 911! MIAMI) is their take on the demonic possession premise, i.e. it’s yet another EXORCIST parody. It concerns a expectant couple played by Rob Corddry (The Daily Show, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE) and Leslie Bibb (TALLADEGA NIGHTS, IRON MAN 1 & 2) who purchase an old run down house in New Orleans.

Keegan-Michael Key (MadTV, Key and Peele) pops up in the window, scaring them half to death, and tells Corddry and Bibb that their new abode is known in the neighborhood as the “house of blood,” “the place where the dead never left”, and “the spooky house down the way,” but not to worry because “nobody’s been murdered here for a long time.” It’s been 2 months and a week as a matter of fact.

That pretty much defines the level of humor present here. Scene after scene go by without a single funny line or decent gag. Key continues to appear and scare the Hell out of Corddry in a miserable running joke that he lives there in their crawl space for reasons unexplained. That seems to be the one element of modern horror films or supernatural thrillers that Garant and Lennon have seized on to satirize, that these films often just succeed in giving the audience a jolt instead of a legitimate scare. “I’m so tired of being startled!” Corddry even yells at one point, but that still doesn’t result in a legitimate laugh.

Garant and Lennon wrote themselves into this nonsense as a pair of pervy priests from the Vatican who are on hand to perform an exorcism on Bibb, now carrying the spawn of Satan supposedly.

The newly possessed Bibb, so pregnant that it looks like she is smuggling a beach boy under her clothing, has started killing people, including former “The State” cast mate Michael Ian Black as a her therapist. A few incompetent cops, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, come to investigate, but are more interested in wolfing down a few Po’Boys at Domilise’s on Bourbon Street in another lame running gag.

Gratuitous nudity (largely provided by Riki Lindhome as Bibb’s free-spirited sister), vomit, and gallows humor galore tiresomely fill up the gaps between predictable story beats, all of it boring me to tears way before the ending.

Such a sorry enterprise made me more appreciate the high hilarity, and much better EXORCIST-spoofing that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s THIS IS THE END pulled off earlier in the summer. It’s really sad, and a bit surprising that this cast and crew couldn’t scare up anything funny in HELL BABY. I bet these these folks could do improv in their sleep that would be better than this tossed-off horror comedy.

More later...

IN A WORLD...Where A Woman Makes A Really Likable Directorial Debut...

Now playing at an indie art house near you...

IN A WORLD… (Dir. Lake Bell, 2013)

There are quite a few things I really liked about this film, the directorial debut of Lake Bell, who also wrote, produced, and stars.

First off, I liked the premise: Bell is a Los Angeles vocal coach who gets a chance to break into the male dominated profession of doing voice-overs for movie trailers when the powers that be decide to bring back the “In a world…” phrase that used to open seemingly every preview.

Next, I liked the cast that populates the film including Fred Melamed as Bell’s father, a voice-over legend second only to the real-life late Don Lafontaine, comedian Demetri Martin as Bell’s co-worker who has a crush on her, Ken Marino (The State, Party Down) as a slimy voiceover talent who Melamed is grooming to take over his position, Micheala Watkins (SNL) as Bell’s sister who’s married to Rob Corrdry (The Daily Show, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE), and Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation), and comedian Tig Nattaro as cynical sound engineers.

I liked Bell’s screenplay, which is full of good lines, well observed insights into this little explored segment of show business, and relatable characters.

I liked the third act cameos that I won’t spoil, the composition of many shots by cinematographer Tom McArdle, and that it taught me that the Golden Trailer Awards, now entering their 14th year, is a real event.

Yes, Bell’s IN A WORLD is a very likable movie.

Previously, Bell has appeared in such TV series as The Practice, Boston Legal, and Children’s Hospital, or in films like IT’S COMPLICATED, WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, and the recent thriller BLACK ROCK, but she’s never really stood out.

Here Bell really earns the spotlight with her relatable neurotic lead portrayal and by crafting a comedy that’s inventive, unpretentious, and as appealing as she is.

Melamed, who has appeared in 8 Woody Allen films and put in an acclaimed performance in the Coen Brother’s A SERIOUS MAN, makes the most of his juicy role here. With his character’s vanity largely on display (and embodied in his young girlfriend Alexandra Holden), Melamed never fails to amuse whenever he’s on screen. 

When Melamed finds out that his daughter may be up for a major trailer voice-over gig for a HUNGER GAMES-esque quadrilogy, the one that’s going to bring “In a world” back, he calls off his retirement to compete with Bell and Marino for the job. His parental pettiness, especially as he's on the verge of accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Trailer Awards, is hilariously palpable.

Unfortunately, more on the sitcom side is a subplot involving Watkins coming close to cheating on her sandwich obsessed hubby Corrdry, but that bit of comic conflict doesn’t get in the way of the fun here – in fact the way it wraps up features one of the film’s funniest and touching moments.

So again, Bell's film is extremely likable, but more importantly it's a refreshing low key comedy that cares about its characters. In a world (sorry) of excruciating amounts of blockbuster bombast, that's really something to embrace.

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HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: The Film Babble Blog Review

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (Dir. Steve Pink, 2010)

A few years ago I wrote about the severe lack of quality John Cusack films over the last decade. Well, I never thought his cinematic redemption would come in the form of something titled HOT TUB TIME MACHINE - which is honestly the funniest comedy I’ve seen since BLACK DYNAMITE and ZOMBIELAND.

Sure, it’s a stupid concept – 4 guys go back in time to the 80’s via a hotel hot tub spiked by a Russian Red Bull beverage called Chernobyly - one that might look like it could be a sci-fi tinged WILD HOGS (which is name checked in the movie) men-will-be-boys comic nightmare of a movie, but it’s seriously a lot of fun.

John Cusack, Craig Robinson (The Office, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS), and Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) are old friends whose lives haven’t turned out the way they wanted. Cusack, in a role that has more than a little of Rob Gordon from HIGH FIDELITY in it, is a control freak insurance agent who has just been left by his live-in girlfriend, Robinson left his musical aspirations aside to work in a upscale pet store and fears his wife is cheating on him, and Corddry, a party boy gone to seed, just tried to commit suicide.

So along with Cusack’s video game obsessed nephew played by Clark Duke (the web series Clark and Michael) they travel to a ski resort they frequented back in the day to give their lives a kick-start, but much like them, the resort and the surrounding town has seen better days. In a great shout out to a much loved 80’s time travel classic (BACK TO THE FUTURE) Crispin Glover appears as a one armed bellhop with a very bad attitude.