I’m biased. I’m a comedy nerd. I loved and still do love The State and Reno 911. I think that Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon are two of the best comedians and comedic writers out there. These two know what they are doing. Hell Baby is no exception. This movie is the co-directing debut for the pair.
Hell Baby is a movie about Jack (Rob Corddry) and Vanessa (Leslie Bibb), an expectant couple who move into a dilapidated house in post-Katrina New Orleans. One they start to settle in, unsettling events start taking place. Their neighbor F’resnel (Keegan-Michael Key) drops hints about the fact that their new home has a deadly and murderous past. After run-ins with the local parrish police (Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer), Jack and Vanessa eventually have to enlist the help of two Vatican priests (Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon) to help them battle the Devil.
Lennon and Garant are so great as Father Padrigo and Father Sebastian, and Huebel and Scheer play a great set of small-town police. Michael-Keegan Key’s F’resnel made me laugh every time he appeared on camera. This film is packed with people who know comedy and who know how to play out funny moments well. Even with smaller parts, Michael Ian Black, Kumail Najiani, and Dave Holmes still make their comedic presences known. Corddry and Bibb play well off of one another and Corddry has some really stand-out moments in this film.
My only hiccup with Hell Baby is that there are some abrupt edits in the film. A few scenes had edit points, but those were not enough to keep me from enjoying this movie.
Not only is Hell Baby packed full of funny moments but numerous quotable lines as well. Lennon and Garant could have played on the typical items in any horror film, but they picked subtler items to mock and in turn kept the funny coming. The unrated version has a lot of blue humor, but that’s part of what I liked about it. And for those of you out there that are looking for a lot of boobs in a movie, there are plenty of boobs in Hell Baby. This movie is fun, silly, ridiculous, and deserves many more viewings. I think Hell Baby is going to become a cult favorite.
