Distinctly Hellish!
Some films, particularly of the horror genre, are low-budget disasters for lots of reasons, like a bad script, bad acting, bad directing etc. But the ones that annoy me the most are the ones that clearly have the potential to be something decent, and perchance, watchable. Enter Coffin Baby, with one of the laziest scripts I’ve come across this year. Poor writing combined with questionable performances just didn’t help matters.
While some of the movie actually looked almost decent, first-time director Dean Jones, didn’t have a handle on this production. The dialogue was another misfire, placing characters in completely unrealistic situations with the cops and crime victims. Like when the sister has been killed, and to calm the grieving woman down, the cop all but pistol-whips her to help with the grieving process. He did finally settle on just shouting about how hard his job is, so she should feel sorry for him, not the other way around.
- Coffin Baby
- Director
Dean Jones - Cast
Bruce Dern, Brian Krause, Ethan Phillips - Release Date
Out Now - Ed’s Grade: D
There were some absolute classics in this film, but the one with the stereotypical “bro’s” was vomit-inducing. The group of African-Americans Dean Jones used as “gangstas” was utterly ludicrous. I could just imagine the director telling the actors to “act more black” or “I need to feel that ghetto come through, guys” something like that. Actually, what pissed me off the most about the “gangsta” scene was when one of the guys who has a gun, tries to kill the unarmed crazed killer. He holds the gun out then just stands there waiting to be disarmed. Aaargh!! This was the equivalent of when we watch those shitty Z flicks where the hot chick runs away from a slow-assed, leg-dragging zombie that mysteriously keeps up no matter how fast she runs, … until she stumbles over a blade of grass, of course.
The opening scene–shot rather well in black and white–is set in Hollywood CA – 1958. Cut to a coffin, then follow a man who has just lit a cigarette in great film noir fashion. He walks out to the sidewalk then magically, all turns to color as we’re told it’s now “present day.”
*****
A woman has found out her sister has been murdered, and she wants answers. She stomps around the crime scene, touching evidence, and inexplicably writing something on her arm using a nail-brush. But before getting anywhere, she’s snatched from the street and imprisoned in a large cage. Her deformed captor continually does weird stuff to her, like scrubbing her arm with a wire brush, then blowtorching it to destroy the writing on her offending extremity.
The killer ends up with a great final solution to the problem. She also gets fed on human remains from the many bodies he brings in, and when he chops them up (for no apparent reason), he tosses in the odd arm or leg. During all this time of her physical and mental torture, the director made sure her hair was always pristine, but Dean Jones is also a makeup artist, so that makes sense in his universe.
Definitely a film that should be in the “WTF?!” category.
