Given its spoof horror status, when judging the merits of Hell Baby, it behooves me to contextualize this in the line of horror comedies that came before it, only because as any quick perusal of IMDB will reveal that spoof horrors are not usually well received. Considering their overwhelmingly poor performances and super saturated scripts, most more than deserve that fire of critical panning. Yet, strangely in this particular contrast, the context reveals why Hell Baby holds up. It is not that Hell Baby doesn’t feature the absurdity of the Scary Movie series. In fact, Hell Baby embraces this silliness. Sure, Hell Baby is nowhere close to good. True to spoof horrors, it is plagued by overacting, scattered plot tangents and awful dialogue, but those aspects are also what make it a contender for the upper-echelon of its subgenre. Unlike other smiling ghouls, Hell Baby actually keeps up with the scares. I could not count the number of times the film made me jump. Even better is that those jumps came with a whole slew of laughs. Is it possible that the duo of Garant and Lennon have perfected the laugh to thrill ratio that so many spoof horrors miss? Well, “perfect” is a strong word, but they sincerely raised the classroom average for their peers. Aside from creating a great balance of scares and laughs, Hell Baby, nearly on par with Anna Faris, also inhabited its overacting. Particularly noteworthy in this category is Keegan Michael Key who plays the couple’s funky next door neighbor turned squatter. Key manages to create a perfect Louisianan caricature while still hitting almost every punch line out of the park. Garant and Lennon as the two Italian priests should also not be overlooked when their accents almost rival Brad Pitt and company’s in Inglourious Basterds. Overall, if you are looking for a horror comedy, then I definitely recommend Hell Baby, as it takes a regular spoof horror and amps up all that separates it into its own subgenre. But, if you tend to not like this kind of movie, then I would steer clear as its wackiness may possess you for an entirely different reason. I mean really, what Vatican priests do you know that like female strippers? Den of Geek Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
