A young mother (an excellent and terrifying performance by Colleen Porch) suffering from post-partum depression goes dangerously crazy and turns on her own children. It's up to ten-year-old Jimmy (a sound and credible portrayal by Ridge Canipe) to protect both himself and his younger siblings from their mother's murderous wrath. Directors Amardeep Kaleka and Lars Jacobson (the latter also wrote the dark and uncompromising script) don't pull any punches in their telling of this genuinely scary and upsetting tale that was inspired by an actual incident; the extreme scenes of brutal violence against children (some of them are even killed!) are intensely painful, gut-wrenching, and hard to watch. Moreover, the meticulous and convincing evocation of pedestrian everyday reality adds an extra frightening plausibility to the already bleak and unnerving narrative. The best and most distressful horror films hit home (in this case literally) by showing how ordinary life can be ripped asunder by an equally mundane, yet deadly and unusual phenomenon. One becomes very afraid of what this unhinged and dangerous woman might do to both herself and her own children; her descent into psychotic insanity is the stuff of real nightmares. The film further benefits from sterling acting by an able no-name cast: Porch and Canipe are remarkable in the leads, with fine support from Joel Bryant as the trucker father, Kali Majors and Holden Thomas Maynard as Jimmy's younger siblings, and Gene Witham as amiable neighbor Lester. Matthew MacCarthy's cinematography gives the picture an appropriately rough and grainy look. Amardeep Kaleka's shuddery score also does the shivery trick. The conclusion is positively bone-chilling. Unpleasant for sure, but still quite powerful and effective just the same.
Review of Baby Blues
