Nightmares of a maniac killer in a baby mask inspire a writer’s new script. But as his life begins to spiral out of control, he discovers Big Baby’s murderous rampage may be more than fiction.
Spider One (Powerman 5000) wrote and directed the meta-slasher Big Baby, with Cher (Moonstruck) acting as executive producer. Brandon Scott (Descendant), Krsy Fox (Little Bites), Adam Marcinowski (Bury the Bride), Catherine Corcoran (Terrifier), Chaz Bono (American Horror Story), and David Howard Thornton (‘Art the Clown’ in the Terrifier franchise) are among those starring in the just-released film.
I’m not really a slasher guy. With so many sub-genres of horror, we can’t all simply be fans of everything. The synopsis sounded like something I’d seen before: a writer’s fantasies manifesting into our reality – the lines between fact and fiction blurred. “Is he crazy or are the hallucinations real?” The trailer didn’t help; the costume seemed cheap, and the Big Baby was about as terrifying as a drunk uncle on Halloween. The marketing truly made me want to give this one a skip.
I am really glad that I did not. Although the specific twist on the regular horror trope has been done from time to time – the most recent in my memory being The Draft (2023) – it did not detract from the film’s secondary possibility of the writer’s personal insecurities manifesting as a violent second nature. You’re rather – and all the better for it – left guessing throughout the film’s runtime, making it harder to Sherlock your way to the last act.
The Big Baby entity itself is far too tropey. It’s basically a Camp Crystal Lake/Jason Voorhees knockoff that the film’s characters treat as an original IP. What makes it clever is the constant second-guessing and the fact that the film centres more around Adam’s (Scott) descent into madness and Kate’s (Fox) amazing ability to put up with his constant, unstable mood swings and aggressive personality. When the kills and gore do come, they are mid-range at best.
If you are expecting Terrifier-like murders, you will be disappointed. They’re more akin to those chop-ups and beheadings of the 80s. Very old-school kids and action videos – which, again, take a back seat to the more important themes of abusive relationships, stress, deadlines, ambition, and self-importance. The Big Baby really isn’t the creature at the end of it all; it’s the selfish husband who refused to grow up and care about more than himself.
It’s a good film. It’s not a great slasher film, and I don’t think that it was trying to be. I feel that it may have been marketed that way, which was ultimately a mistake. This was more of a psychological horror wrapped in an obsession, wrapped in a slasher, and is something that most definitely needs unwrapping.
Thanks for reading, and, as always, stay sordid. Big Baby just released after its TUBI Fright Fest premiere and is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital on most platforms. The artwork and trailer are below.
