Delayed Reaction: Hell Baby

The Pitch: What if a horror comedy knew it was a horror comedy the whole time?

A man and his pregnant wife move into a haunted house and become possessed by the devil.

It's weird how some things stick with you. I remember reading a review back when this premiered at Sundance in 2013 that wasn't even all that favorable. For some reason, I remember it referring to Kumail Nanjiani being a scene-stealer in this and The Kings of Summer. Mind you, this was a year before Silicon Valley. I never watched Franklin & Bash. I wasn't aware enough of the stand-up comedy scene to really register who Nanjiani was. That review credited the single funniest scene of the movie to be Nanjiani's. I remembered that name and when he started popping up in other shows and films, I kept thinking about this movie and wondering what that scene was.

Hell Baby finally came up in my Netflix queue and I have to say, the scene was pretty funny. The rest of the movie...not so much. I've come to realize that I have to be careful about Film Festival reviews of movies, especially comedies. Certain movies just tap into fesival crowds in ways that aren't replicable. I recall films like Austenland and The Oranges being real crowdpleasers when they played at festivals, and when I tracked them down, they didn't really work. I can see how this movie could work in a full theater or with a slap-happy group. There is a lot of dumb humor. Not deceptively smart humor that looks dumb. I mean dumb humor. A lot of the laughs follow the principle that if they keep a bad joke going for long enough, it will wear the audience down and start being funny. So, the film reuses a lot of jokes (How many times did they stop to eat a Po Boy?) or hits a punchline extra hard (so much puking!). Often, the joke is that they pause to point out the rational response to a crazy situation right before dipping back into the lunacy. I wasn't a big fan. The movie was mostly a reminder of how casting agents have never known what to do with Leslie Bibb or Riki Lindhome: attractive blondes with great comic timing who normally get stuck playing bimbo roles. Hell Baby is a step above lazy horror comedies like the Scary Movie sequels and several steps below the best of the genre (What We Doin the Shadows, The Cabin in the Woods).

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend