Review of Dead Babies

Introduction

One of the drawbacks of being a DVD Reviewer is that occasionally you wind up with a title you normally wouldn`t touch with a remotely-controlled wheelbarrow robot. Dead Babies is one such film. I thought I`d plumbed the depths with gore-fest Nightmares Of A Damaged Brain, but this movie maxes-out my crapometer and it hasn`t even got the saving grace of lashings of gore. Scarily, the movie arrived in the equivalent of a plain brown wrapper - a Sony Sonopress check disc mini digipak - and the only indication of the contents being the title printed in twelve-point on the front.

"Whoopee," I thought. "That sounds like a barrel of laughs." I went over to the IMDb to check for details, as I`d never heard of it. Made in 2000. Stars Paul Bettany from "Knight`s Tale" and "Wimbledon". Based on an acclaimed novel by Martin Amis. Hmmm. Okay. Give it a spin.

Quoting from the PR blurb we got for the movie: "A distinctly warped version of the `country house whodunit`, Martin Amis` acclaimed `70s novel gets an update for the techno-age in this macabre screen translation, made in 2000. Bettany plays the witty and charming Quentin, who joins a group of student friends at Appleseed Rectory for a weekend of sex, drugs, alcohol and general excess. The stakes are raised by the arrival of three mysterious Americans with a suitcase of drugs and an even more creative attitude to decadence than Quentin and his friends. But hovering over this weekend of mayhem is the spectre of `The Conceptualists`. This secretive group of Internet anarchists delights in inflicting a violent revenge on those they regard as society`s `wasters`, and it soon becomes evident that they have invaded Appleseed Rectory. As events take a dark and bloody turn, is the mayhem caused by external forces - or by someone very close to home?"

Ewwww!

Okay, didn`t see any actual dead babies as such but I was watching the movie in reluctant bursts. If that offends anybody as to my reviewer`s objectivity I apologise, but nobody said I have to watch anything end to end to give a review, and frankly when I`m watching something I`m not enjoying or find unpleasant I`m reminded of that old line from the Bible (Matthew 18:9) "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee". I certainly know there are times I`d gouge out my mind`s eye, but as I`m rather fond of both my brown, puppy-dog orbs I`d rather skip bits of a movie than take a fork to them.

This movie is the UK equivalent of a gross-out picture, but with pretentions of art and deep meaning rather than disgusted belly-laughs. It`s ugly, squalid and above all boring. With regards the paragraph immediately above, a lot of people in the film appear in a state of undress, and quite frankly some of them have great bodies for radio. Andy Nyman as Keith is a crime against the eyes even with his clothes on, and frankly anybody who kicks cats like that needs neutering.

Martin Amis is old Kingsley Amis` son, demonstrating the laws of chip-off-the-old-blockiveness (blockitivity??) if nothing else. Director William Marsh has adapted Amis` short (224 page) novel full of grotesque characters and put them up on the silver screen for our edification.

The largely tv-sourced cast and the aiming-to-shock nature of the movie make this a typical Britflick (aimed it would appear to drive audiences away rather than aiming to get bums on seats). In typical windy style, the US distributors of the film substituted the title "Mood Swingers" for the video release lest they offend.

I`m off to wash my eyeballs out.

Video

The movie is presented in non-anamorphic 2.35:1 letterbox, so you have a seriously disadvantaged movie to start with. Cinematographer Daniel Cohen has saturated the colours which gives the movie an interesting look. It`s just a shame the content didn`t match.

Audio

The sound is in plain vanilla Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.

Features

Only one, a short video featurette that looks like it was shot on miniDV. No subtitles are provided on either it or the main feature.

Conclusion

Maybe others might get more out of this movie than I did, but I just had an immediate and totally negative reaction to this picture. As I often say when arguing movies on the forums and other places, Chacun a son gout. Well, I`m afraid this picture wasn`t my gout at all.

The major location is one of those grand old country houses that I`m sure I`ve seen in a couple of Hammer movies, but I suspect the owners had to have the place fumigated after the crew left.

Again, Yuk.