That's One Bloody Registry

Baby Shower is far from a perfect (or even very good) horror film, but it does nail one thing that I often preach:

Older characters.

It's a lesson I can't teach enough when it comes to genre (or really, ANY TYPE) of cinema: the longer your characters have lived, the more dramatic possibilities they will have. The core cast of Baby Shower is far from geriatric or even middle aged, but focusing the story on mid-30somethings versus, say, the similarly themed, innately less interesting The Last Resort just goes to show how much more compelling it is to watch horror victims who have more to lose attempting to hang on. Sure, pretty and hard young bodies are nice to look at, but it's simply easier to care about a 35-year-old mother of three and hard-living career woman than it is a hot sorority girl.

Quick Plot: Angela is a very pregnant woman hosting a few city friends for the weekend in her isolated country estate. Because such a setup can never possibly go wrong, we throw in a kooky new age-y spiritual leader with a great rack, an easily seduceable handyman, and accusations regarding adultery. Before long, poisoned tea is being vomited onto expensive bedsheets, faces are being shotgunned, penises devoured, and in the glory of all glory, bear traps activated.

Man do I love me a good bear trap snapping.

Baby Shower is a zany movie, and for once, that's almost a bad thing. See, up until the halfway point, we're following some well-acted, believably written old friends reunite at a time in their lives when they're all in different places. Claudia, the homemaker, loads quite a lot into the looks she gives Manuela, a singleton with a casual cocaine habit. Angela is tense and pregnant, while her novelist pal is more interested in casual sex than motherhood. These women are well-established as characters, and watching them act off one another is a true pleasure.

And then things get bloody.

I like to think of myself as a fairly smart person, but I tell you: I don't really understand anything that happened once people started getting stabbed.

Obviously, I know people were stabbed (or genitally consumed or bear trapped), but that didn't explain WHY they were stabbed or bear trapped (it's always clear why one is genitally consumed). Something about hippies hating sin something something. I don't think it mattered, said with a raised vocal inflection to suggest a question. I wasn't bored, but what started as a movie that could have truly been something special ended (for me) on a note of confusion and casual indifference.

High Points

From the sprawling country estate to the well-done (and rarely coy) gore, Baby Shower is easily one of the best-looking low budget horror films to come out in recent years

I mean it: older characters make for more interesting stories. Considering the rather chaotic nature of the film's later acts, I would have almost preferred a non-murderous adventure simply because I was enjoying the performances so much

Low Points

I also mean it when I say, what and why happened for the film's last 45 minutes?

Lessons Learned

En espanol, 'baby shower' translates to 'bay-bee shower'

You can always tell a writer by her boots

Being stabbed repeatedly hurts quite a bit, but on the positive side, you can accomplish quite a lot before dying from it

Rent/Bury/Buy

I enjoyed Baby Shower, even though at times, I felt like the movie was challenging me to do so. Seriously, I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY MURDER HAPPENED. But I liked the characters, loved the look, and was ultimately entertained in spite of myself. Approach with caution.

Because Pretty People Sometimes Deserve To Die

When a synopsis for a low-budget horror film involves a bachelorette party,  you can guess you’ll be in for a rough ride. Then again, that also means a bunch of obnoxious bachelorettes will experience horrific deaths, so that in itself makes The Last Resort fairly inviting.

Quick Plot: A group of attractive and annoying 20something females head to Mexico for a week’s worth of drinking and being skanky in honor of their pal Kat’s upcoming wedding. After the kind of night in a bar that involves a drinking montage with enough shots that would kill Andre the Giant, the sensible girl of the group (because she’s a brunette) goes home with a nice guy, while the other four airheads awaken the next day with killer hangovers and the great idea to go sightseeing in a van with two not suspicious at all locals. 

In case you’re wondering, yes, you are now at this point expected to wish a painful death to everyone you’ve met onscreen thus far.

As Brunette spends a sunny day at the beach with her bland beau, her shriekier pals get robbed (but pointedly not raped), non-fatally shot, and left in the desert with only an abandoned resort to keep them comfy. All would be okay enough if the resort didn’t happen to be channeling eviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil energy with the power to possess its inhabitants and inspire all sorts of hysterically violent actions.

What follows involves cannibalism, guttings, and a fair share of dumb white people not understanding ominous warnings in Spanish. It sounds awful, but believe it or not, The Last Resort isn’t half bad for what it is. Yes, the cast is about as likable as a skin rash, but the film is more than willing to go to darker, grislier places than its pretty sheen might have you suspect. The actual results of a possessed give-in-to-your-inner-urges hotel causing some visitors to eat their friends...hey, I can get behind that.

High Points

In the wake of the modern thin-is-in trend, it’s weirdly refreshing to hear so much verbal attacks on the skinniest character’s body. Sure, a bandit telling her she’s too bony to rape isn’t exactly a step towards equality, but hey, it’s less insulting than it should be

Low Points

You know, the whole “these women are terribly annoying” thing...

Lessons Learned

Being shot is not good

Mexico means in Mexican weird

Petty thieves with gunshot wounds don’t get to make demands

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’ve seen far worse horror movies than The Last Resort. It’s by no means a major feat in filmmaking, but one could do far worse when surfing the Instant Watch offerings than this gory vacation tale. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see almost every character suffer a horrible fate, but it also means I didn’t hate watching it. So you know, modern mediocrity at its most mediocre.