Nato – The Hell Baby (Hell Baby)
The devil got a baby mama for sure, and in Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant’s Hell Baby, that unfortunate mother is the lovely Leslie Bibb. Since this is a demonic creation from the guys who dreamed up Reno 911!, you can expect a stronger focus on comedy over presenting a horrifying, evil, horned baby, but that doesn’t mean said baby doesn’t get his time to brutally shine. It’s funny, because in an interview I conducted with Lennon and Garant, I learned that the baby puppet was actually a tremendously difficult task to get around. Basically, they gave me a pretty solid piece of advice – “Never name your movie after a prop you haven’t built yet.” Luckily, the Hell Baby works, but filming with a limp puppet required a ton of extra effort from the hilarious cast involved.
The baby’s birthing scene stands at the climax of Hell Baby, as he’s popped out and passed around like a hot potato, only taking breaks to viciously maul our characters one by one. Lennon, Garant, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel, Rob Corddry, Riki Lindhome, and Keegan Michael Key are all forced to battle the spawn of Satan, which ends miserably/hilariously for numerous characters. Watching Scheer and Huebel as bumbling cops in this scenario was funny enough, but they’re only a small piece of the puzzle.
Is Hell Baby nothing but silly, simple horror fun? Absolutely – and that’s all it needs to be. I do wish I could have found a snapshot of the puppet in action, but no luck on this one – Lennon and Garant must really be hiding their bundle of joy.