Director – Alain Robak, Screenplay – Serge Cukier & Alain Robak, Producers – Joelle Malberg, Irene Sohm & Ariel Zeitoun, Photography – Bernard Dechet, Music – Carlos Acciari, Mechanical Effects – Jean-Marc Toussaint, Makeup Effects – Benoit Lestang. Production Company – Partner’s Productions/Exo 7 Productions.
Cast
Emmanuelle Escourrou (Yanka), Christian Sinniger (Lohman), Jean-Francois Gallotte (Richard), Roselyne Geslot (Rosette), Francois Frapier (Leopard Delivery Man), Roger Placenta (Voice of the Monster), Alain Chabat (Cinema Passer), Jean-Yves Lafesse (Truck Driver), Jacques Audiard (Jogger)
Plot
In the north of France, Yanka lives with the owner of the Circus Lohman where she performs with the big cats but does not like the way Lohman treats her. A parasitic organism then enters her womb and she finds that she is now pregnant. She flees the circus. Lohman finds her sometime later, living in an abandoned building but he is killed as they struggle. The voice of the creature in her womb talks to Yanka, saying it wants her to drink the blood from his body so that it can grow. It then demands that she kill and devour the blood of others so that it can feed. Yanka travels to Paris and gets a job as a waitress. As other men become interested in her, she and the creature leave a bloody trail of dead bodies wherever she goes.
Baby Blood came out with quite a degree of controversy. It was a popular hit in France. It was released in the US in an English-dubbed version entitled The Evil Within, minus some of the gore scenes, and where the monster’s voice was dubbed by Gary Oldman. The version viewed here is the one that advertises itself as uncut.
Baby Blood comes as part of the whole Pregnancy Horrors sub-genre that derived from Rosemary’s Baby (1968) or perhaps more so the murderous baby of It’s Alive (1974). Although this is more a Rosemary’s Baby film conceived by way of Alien (1979) where the pregnancy is a Parasite akin to a chestburster that inhabits Emmanuelle Escourrou’s womb rather than forces itself down her throat. It also has one novelty these other malevolent pregnancies do not – the foetus keeps up a running monologue throughout, demanding that Emmanuelle kill and feed it more blood.
The film quickly gets Emmanuelle Escourrou nude (and keeps her that way for a substantial portion of the film). The proceedings soon gets gorily blood drenched where director Alain Robak holds back little. Some of the images are striking – like the scene where Emmanuelle lures away later to be comedy actor/director Alain Chabat, into a walkthrough arcade and begins making out with him and then stabs him just as they are interrupted by people coming out the exit door of a movie theatre beside them and she quickly grabs him in a kiss, which end up with blood gushing between their mouths, before the crowd thin out and she leaves, letting the body slump while still spurting blood from the neck.
Emmanuelle Escourrou on a railway line as bloody arms burst out of her womb
There’s also a scene where she is lying on a train track and begins to give birth as two giant bloodied arms tear their way out through her body, before this is revealed to be a dream. In another scene, we see her running down a jogger in a stolen taxi and then getting out to kick his head off. In the film’s most hilariously deranged scene, she hijacks a blood drive bus using a kid’s toy gun and starts drinking from the bags of blood. She gets a ride on the bus of a soccer team, before the parasite creature emerges from her womb and attacks the driver while he is driving, leaving Emmanuelle having to operate the steering wheel while the driver writhes in his seat with the parasite covering his face and the players flee to the back of the bus.
Emmanuelle Escourrou has a stunning body. Her performance is one that ranges between irritatedly impregnated and murderous femme fatale. The great surprise is that she barely done any acting outside of this and its sequel.
Lady Blood (2008) was a sequel featuring a return performance from Emmanuelle Escourrou.
Baby Blood was the second film for director/writer Alain Robak who had previously made Irina and the Shadows (1984). Aside from episodes of the French anthologies Adrenaline (1990) and Parano (1996), the only other films that Robak has directed was the prison film The Slammer (2000).
