User reviews

French cinema isn't exactly known for its many horror masterpieces (the exceptions that prove this rule are "Les Yeux Sans Visage" and the more recent "Haute Tension") but, as much as in every other country, there are always some gore-loving genre fanatics that sooner or later direct their own independent cult gem. Alain Robak clearly is such an enthusiast filmmaker and his "Baby Blood" is a hugely entertaining and cheerful splatterfest, despite the poor and inept screenplay. The relatively unknown but impressively voluptuous Emmanuelle Escourrou (what's in a name) stars as the unhappy fiancée of a circus artist who gets impregnated by a parasite that burst out a newly imported cheetah. The fetus growing inside Yanka is pure evil and demands her to kill men so that it can feed on their blood. This results in some of the most over-the-top bloody and sadistic massacres ever shot on film, with cut off heads, slit throats and many outrageous knife-attacks. Of course, this exaggerated amount of bloodshed makes it all blackly comical and "Baby Blood" therefore shouldn't be taken too seriously. This isn't the fist horror film handling about ferocious fetuses/infants (there's also "It's Alive", "I don't want to be Born" and even the premise of "Rosemary's Baby" is remotely similar) but "Baby Blood" is much more creative and tongue-in-cheek than anything you've ever seen before. The camera-work is quite nifty and there are several cameos of eminent Frenchmen, like Jacques Audiard (director of "Read My Lips") and Alain Chabat (who played Caesar in "Asterix"). The script is very man-unfriendly, which is quite a new approach for exploitation! Nearly every male is presented as a weak and imbecile creature whereas Yanka gets stronger with every murder she commits. "Baby Blood" is ingenious, somewhat bizarre horror fun.

Over the years, plenty of film fans have turned director and churned out ultra-cheap gore-fests which go out of their way to desensitise the viewer with endless bloody murders and guts splashed all over the place. Most of the time, these independent filmmakers come from America or the U.K., and thus the '80s and '90s are full of little-seen films like THE ABOMINATION. BABY BLOOD is a French take on this sub-genre of movie-making, a dark little splatter film with a bizarre plot that capitalises on the late '80s/early '90s trend in "evil baby" films, perhaps set off by US flick THE UNBORN. While it's cheap and sometimes badly acted, BABY BLOOD tells a simple story that moves along at great speed. Essentially, it's about a woman possessed by her primeval baby, who turns out to be a slithery Lovecraftian creature with a penchant for blood.

Along the way the woman becomes a blood-drinking maniac who, in a distinctly feminist angle, goes after the men who slight her, before turning her sights on all men in general. After a series of murders and vehicle accidents, the baby is born with predictably disastrous consequences. BABY BLOOD succeeds in creating some eerie moments, mostly in the creepy voice of the killer baby (word has it that Gary Oldman dubbed this role for the American release). As the heroine, the voluptuous Emmanuelle Escourrou isn't afraid to spend much of the film in the nude, adding to the exploitation value, and she transforms her character from an attractive and fragile victim to a blood-soaked maniac with a certain level of convincingness. The male characters in the film are all pretty stupid and sleazy, so it's hard to work up empathy when they get their guts torn out.

At heart, this is a gore film and director Alain Robak focuses on the bloodshed throughout. There are knife murders, people getting crushed and run over by cars, bodies being torn to shreds and severed heads galore. The blood is liberally sprayed all over, pushing the boundaries of good taste on many occasions, and the low budget special effects are surprisingly decent. One of the most disturbing sequences is a nightmare in which the heroine sees bloody hands emerging from her stomach – a truly stomach-churning and weird moment. Robak also creates a brilliant and offbeat sequence of the heroine staggering down the street, where the actress is shot from a low angle and there's a look of animation to the shot. I can't quite describe it, but it's one of the most inventive things I've ever seen. Bizarrely, despite the downbeat, degrading nature of the story and all the darkness and brutality of the murders, the baby turns out to be quite a humorous creation and engages in some comedic question-and-answer sessions with its mother as it tries to find out more about the human world. The final set-piece, on a bus full of drunken footballers, is well-executed with some memorably slippery special effects work, and the final shots are neatly portrayed. BABY BLOOD won't rock anybody's world, but it is a well-made and distinctive little shocker.

Baby Blood is filled to the brim with gore and haunting imagery, but it does leave a funky taste in one's mouth when all is said and done. The plot doesn't quite gel together as well as it should and it can be a frustrating, fragmented, and episodic viewing experience as the lead character goes from person to person on a mad killing spree, trying to satiate her unborn baby's appetite for human blood.

'Baby Blood' is a superb overlooked French horror movie that deserves a much wider audience. The beautiful and voluptuous Emmanuelle Escourrou stars as a circus performer who is impregnated by some kind of mutant monster. On the run, her unborn "child" begins to speak to her and demands blood - lots of it. Reluctantly she complies by murdering men she encounters. Eventually she develops a strange love/hate relationship with the monster within her.

This is a brilliantly entertaining variation on the killer baby theme (see 'The Unborn' and 'It's Alive'), with plenty of gore and nudity from the stunning Escourrou. I say steer clear of the American dubbed version as it is cut. 'Baby Blood' is one of the most underrated horror movies of the last twenty years. I thought it was a classic piece of exploitation and I can't recommend it highly enough!

If you're looking for something a little off the beaten path, Baby Blood might just do the trick. It's a story about a woman who gets pregnant and starts hearing the voice of her unborn child telling her to kill and drink the blood of her victims. Wanting to be a good nurturing mother, she does what her baby wants and gets into all sorts of trouble.

Baby Blood might be stylish and filled with nasty special effects, but it also suffers from redundancy midway through. It turns into a series of murders as the lead character lures one hapless victim after another into her web, killing them, and drinking their blood. Pretty soon after, her baby gets hungry again and she does the same thing. The first few times, it's somewhat shocking and interesting, but it gets old after awhile.

Thar said, Baby Blood does deliver the gore, so if that's what you're in the mood for, you could do much worse.

Here's an interesting concept;; Alien like pregnancy with a woman instead of the John Hurt character in that overrated bore fest. The unfortunate baby host is Yanka(Emmanuelle Escourrou). A reptile sort of creature wanders into her uterus and has a thirst for blood. The good mother travels from village to village, killing anyone available to feed her growing fetus's voracious need for plasma in order to grow into a really large and dangerous monster.

The little one is very verbose, having funny conversations with its' host. Yanka is sexy and often naked, which adds to the entertainment value this atmospheric thriller. Baby blood provides buckets of the red stuff, as expected, and I thought that the acting and script were pretty good for this genre.

The director, Alain Roback, has an eye for detail and a sense of humor. The talking baby is a different twist, and it works in Baby Blood.

A chatty entity that has existed since the dawn of creation lives on into the 20th century. It ends up inside a cheetah that gets acquired by a circus. After making a messy exit from inside the big cat, it slithers inside Yanka, a circus performer (super sexy French starlet Emmanuelle Escourrou), and starts incessantly nagging at her. "Feed me", it says to her, much like Audrey II from "The Little Shop of Horrors". It turns out that the monstrous fetus needs blood for sustenance, and Yanka is obliged to go out and nastily slaughter a great many male victims during the duration of her pregnancy.

It's true enough that horror stories about monster babies were not exactly original by this point, but director Alain Robak gives the scenario a fresh coat of blood-red paint with his themes of maternal instinct and feminism gone berserk. (One can hardly fail to notice that most of the men in this story are incorrigible rotters or even worse.) The cast gives the visceral, sadistic material a great, straight-faced go, and Robak gives it great pace as well as dark humour. And, of course, horror fans who rate their movies based on the amount of bloodshed should be more than satisfied. There is also no shortage of nudity.

Overall, this is an engrossing exploitation-horror film that gets a lot of mileage out of the developing relationship between the reluctant mother and the monster within her.

Look for a cameo from the canine star of the French cult hit "Baxter"; director Robak supplies the voice of the monster in the original French version, and none other than Gary Oldman does the voice for the English-language version.

Seven out of 10.

This Gallic horror oddity sees an ancient parasitic embryo burst out of its circus animal host in order to impregnate a big-breasted, gap toothed strumpet named Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou), who is then compelled by the creature to kill ugly French men (in order to feed her new 'baby' blood—hence the title).

Baby Blood is certainly quite splattery, with a lot of the red stuff splashed around and the occasional moment of graphic dismemberment, but even with the high gore content, I found the movie rather tedious in places, due to some rather drawn out and uneventful scenes between the visceral stuff. The story is way too simple to be stretched over feature length and needed more depth in order to fully hold this viewers attention.

Director Alain Robak shows some flair for the visuals (in fact, the opening scenes reminded me a bit of Peter Jackson's directorial style), but his treatment of the story—an uneasy mix of horror and bizarrely comic moments— ends up making the film feel disjointed. Had the film been either totally serious in tone or more outrageously silly, it might have impressed me more. As it stands, it all seems a little awkward in style.

On the plus side, the gore effects are well handled (lots of stabbing, a beheading, a head smashed in) and the Lovecraftian creature, seen towards the end of the film, is an impressively original looking critter—all slimy and pink, with moist quivering bits (which, for some strange reason, has reminded me to mention that star Emmanuelle Escourrou spends a lot of her time with her kit off!).

Well, The Evil Within (Baby Blood) is definitely a different sort of movie. It isn't just the loads of blood that make this movie a fun choice, it has good atmosphere and a great horror storyline that keep things interesting throughout.

The story circles around a young woman named Yonka. Yonka is a very unfortunate woman as she is impregnated by an alien being. Not from outer space, I might add. Anyway, poor Yonka, the baby inside of her can communicate with her telepathically and forces her to kill people and suck there blood to feed the creature inside. The whole story takes place over nine months and has one misadventure after the next, until the very bloody end.

I first saw this movie under the title of The Evil Within many years ago. It is better now then I remember it being when I first viewed it. The movie is incredibly bloody. Not so much during the first hour of the movie, but the last thirty minutes is something else. Of course, I have seen far more bloody, but, if you are not used to this type of thing, it can be quite disturbing.

The storyline in itself is quite original and simple at the same time. What makes it so cool to watch is the relationship Yonka is forced to have with this evil being inside of her. It can be quite horrific and humorous all at the same time.

If you like horror I don't see how you couldn't like this film. If you like Frank Henenlotter's work, movies like Brain Damage or Basket Case, I think this is right up your alley. 9/10

I won't ruin the film by discussing anything other than how important it is to watch the "unrated" version of this film... although this version doesn't change the plot at all, the main reason to watch films such as this is the gore/violence... which is mostly omitted in "The Evil Within", which is the R-Rated North American version which appeared on VHS.

I don't believe that this film has been reissued in it's "unrated version" in North America... making the Anchor Bay DVD that much more rare... if you are lucky (like I am) enough to own or have access to this version... hold on to it, and enjoy the visceral carnage!!

7/10

This French horror movie is more comedy than horror. Even though it starts out sorta seriously, the story quickly turns into a gruesome horror comedy as the pregnant woman with the monster inside her keeps on killing (mostly stupid) men in a series of vignettes strung together haphazardly. The style of filmmaking is typically French. If you seen French commercials or other French dark comedies, you'll recognize the ever present kooky camera angles and the sometimes fast-forward bits.

There's nothing very serious about the film, including the somewhat feminist angle (a woman killing a lot of ugly, violent and stupid men). I say somewhat because even though most of the victims are men, the film concentrates mainly on the love/hate relationship between the monster and the woman, which causes her a lot of pain and suffering, and if there's one thing French cinema is known for, it's gleefully showing young women suffering in the name of art. So, the director's attempt at a feminist statement is ridiculous because the script enjoys putting the woman (who's often naked) through a series of degrading events that belie its feminist intentions. Emmanuelle Escourrou is not really hot or beautiful and this is probably the only "feminist" thing about the movie but I doubt the producers intentionally chose an ordinary looking woman. Something tells me a lot of actresses refused to play the unattractive part and the producers were limited in their choice of actresses willing to go through all the sanguine action.

I'm surprise Troma didn't pick this movie up for release. The ending, which turns into full gory comedy, is very Troma-like. Like when the woman walks around with her face covered in blood and all the men around her don't notice this, or the scene when the new born baby pulls the man inside the car, his legs dangling wildly out of the window. Or the scene when the woman enters a bus full of drunken sports fan who try to gang rape her. Over-the-top silly.

Was it worth watching THE EVIL WITHIN? Well, sorta. I can say it was okay but no one will confuse it with great filmmaking. It's a very grubby-looking schlocky, sometimes funny, more often tedious, horror comedy.

"Baby Blood" follows a downtrodden circus performer, Yanka, who finds herself carrying a mysterious parasite that has entered her uterus against her will. Now, she's eating for two, but not the usual meals— the parasite craves human blood, and will stop at nothing to make sure it gets it.

Given the tendency of French cinema to err on the side of the extreme (especially when it comes to genre films), it's no surprise that "Baby Blood" is as unabashedly gruesome as it is. For all of its other attributes, the film is, at its core, a gross-out body horror splatter flick that delivers mind-numbingly gruesome violence that manages to be legitimately discomforting at times. The film also plays itself as something of a first-person slasher film as well, with the caveat being that the "killer" is operating by proxy.

But there's more to it than that; there is also a well-shaped psychological dimension to the film that is captured effectively through macabre voice overs in which the parasite inhabiting the protagonist's womb speaks within her mind, commanding her moves and actions and chastising her when she doesn't do what it wants. The interplay between the mind, the body, and the invader is well-realized and offers opportunity for scenes that are unnerving and scenes that are darkly funny. Emmanuelle Escourrou gives an instinctive and engrossing performance here that is impressive given she is reacting mainly to herself.

Overall "Baby Blood" is a generally strong horror flick that excels as both an exercise in psychological torment as well as a no-holds-barred body horror splatter flick. Shades of dark humor and a playful edge give the film an extra bit of zest, but it doesn't even really need it, as there is enough clever writing and buckets of blood to keep the most hardened horror fans engaged on some level. 8/10.

The film is not that bad as the raiting says. If your are expecting to see something in the vein of "Friday the13th part10" or something like that you'll be disappointed. This film carries the nuances of European horror cinema: not as much gore but more psycho assault. Watch it and I am sure you won't forget some parts.

It's a really great little horror film although it slows a little in the middle. The opening is great with a splendid circus and wonderful shots of tigers and lions and of course with the rather lovely Emmanuelle Escourrou. I wondered if she was really going to be completely naked all the time and then some horrible parasite wormy like thing impregnates her. Another surprise is that the thing inside is an evil demon, it makes demands of her like blood and death, which can be very gory. The final end is also very good and if along the way it slows down, it is really outstanding much of the time.

Never heard of this movie, never ever heard someone talk about this movie or something so went into this movie with 0 expectations or knowledge of the movie more then it's name.

It's way better then I thought and it was really good filmed scenes and effects, acting was ok as well and it's soundtrack. A bit too long but otherwise pretty good movie. I ain't going to spoil it more then it's about a mother and her "child".

I caught this movie a while back, but I still remember it a bit. This one is kind of like the science fiction horror movie "Horror Planet" only this time it happens on earth. This one has a woman impregnated by something or another. Her baby has a special thirst for blood so the mother must kill in order to feed her baby, so you can tell the title for this one is quite accurate. This is nothing new as I have already mentioned a movie where this was done before, what makes this one freaky is that the baby actually communicates with the mother. It tells her what he is and what his intentions are. Quite frankly, there is nothing for the world to worry about. This one is okay in places, but it does move a bit slow at times as well. It is worth a look see, but I wouldn't buy it or anything. It is a bit interesting to see how the mother reacts to the baby as sometimes she loathes it and at other times she loves it. In the end it primarily shifts to a more basic horror movie.

The Lohman Circus receives a jaguar from Africa, and cages it. The owner, Lohman (Christian Sinniger), is an abusive man that lives with Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou), who is a performer that works with the tamer of the circus. During the night, the jaguar explodes and a snake-like creature crawls into her womb and she gets pregnant. She steals Lohman's money and flees from the circus. However, the monster inside her is blood-thirsty and demands human blood to grow. Soon, Yanka becomes a killer to drink the blood of her victims.

"Baby Blood" is a bizarre French horror movie, with lots of gore. There are so many absurd situations that the plot becomes funny, with potential of cult-movie. The screenplay could be better, but the film is highly entertaining. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Baby Blood"

Hot chick with big boobs? Check. Lots of blood and gore? Check. Pretty unique story and creature? Check. Good production value? Check. Great addition to any horror lover's movie collection? Hell yes.

Baby Blood or Evil Within, whatever you wanna call it, starts with the incredibly sexy and voluptuous Emmanuelle something or other getting impregnated by this alien type worm thing. Due to hating her boss/boyfriend and possibly knowing somethings up she leaves her job as a carny and hits the road. Not long after, this evil worm thing is talking to her from within her belly. I've heard the evil baby thing is actually voiced by Gary Oldman...which is pretty damn cool of Gary. Anyways, the worm/baby/thing demands death and blood so that it can grow, and the hot chick has to put out or else. What follows is a real cool flick that held my attention firmly but softly for about an hour and a half. If you're looking for a pretty unique film with gore and a hot ass chick, check out Cemetery Man, but you can also check out Baby Blood cause it's just as good, and it has a weird alien/worm/baby/thing supposedly voiced by Gary Oldman. 8 outta 10

This film is a bit different, especially how the woman ( Yanka ) is impregnated. Like the other comments, the English version is a bit sliced, but a cool aspect of this version, is that the voice of the unborn baby's telepathic messages is none other than Gary Oldman ( un-accredited, of course).

Oh yes, this one made me think of Angel Above The Devil Below, were an vagina is possessed by the devil and starts talking to the girl. Here we gave a fetus talking to the girl. The storyline is a bit weak but the gore is really intact, the red stuff is almost at all times on screen. The movie surely is a low budget one, the clothes are terrible and the non gore effects are a big laugh like the carcrash and the bus exploding. Anyway, it's a french one and almost better than the overacted German gore. The acting is also terrible except for Emmanuelle Escourrou. She makes the movie. Alain Robak, the director gives his voice to the fetus. The monster himself is also well done, so it's sure that they didn't spend money except on the gore. And for the creeps out there, yes there is frontal nudity. It's an easy one to catch but be sure to buy the French version, that's the only uncut version, a bid bad is that the dubbing in English is not that clear. Anyway, enjoyable flick, second part is coming in 2009 called Lady Blood.