BABY BLOOD

Anchor Bay hauls up another old wreck from the deep--but is this one worth salvaging?  So what we have here plotwise is -- get this -- a ravenous, quasi-sentient parasite crawls into a French circus performer for the express purpose of being born of a human being.  But in order for it to get big and strong and born, it needs a whoooooole lot of blood.  Thus, new French circus mommy has to go out and slaughter up a whole bunch of people to feed the "baby".  There are days, folks, when I type up a quick plot synopsis and even I wonder what I was on when I wrote that.  Clearly, this is not your normal average everyday horror flick.

I do approve of how the cage handling scene, done within the first ten minutes, is almost a mirror for the cage handling scenes from DEAD ALIVE.  DEAD ALIVE also shot its cage handling scenes from an inside the cage perspective, so BABY BLOOD either took its cues well or started a legend on its way.  Despite the almost alarming amount of fake blood being splashed, dashed, and otherwise thrown around the sets, it's not what you would call gratuitous, gore-for-gore's sake filmmaking.  I'm amazed to say it, but all the splatter is actually necessary to the plot.

Just as a bit of the aside, check out the prices at the gas station around half an hour in.  Man, I got the cold chills just looking at them and I'm not even French.  Possibly the scariest moment of BABY BLOODwas looking at a gas station sign that read "5.65".  Yeah, I know...I'm scared too.  Not to mention a bit of wishful thinking--there's a poster for BABY BLOOD 2 in here, with "coming soon" over the top of it.  Nice try, fellas.

Perhaps my one real problem with BABY BLOOD was the subtitles. Having them is great, sure...but they could've meshed with the dialogue a bit better.  It wasn't to the point of sheer incomprehensibility--they at least got the gist of every point--but they really could've made the two match up better.  The ending is really rather unsettling, not only for what you actually see, but for the implications of it all.  When you see it yourself, you'll understand more what that means.  And when you think about it, man...creepy.

The special features include English subtitles and trailers for BABY BLOOD, SUPERSTITION, WARNING SIGN, CEMETERY MAN (DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE for those of you who follow the original titles), and THE EVIL DEAD.  All in all, it's another salvaged hit for Anchor Bay with BABY BLOOD.  Maybe not the best one they've had, granted...but it's not as though this is any kind of bad.  Some genuine shocks combine with an overall pervasive creepiness to yield a movie that's quite solidly put together.