Year: 2008 (U.K DVD release 2009)
Director: Lars Jacobson & Amardeep Kaleka
Screenplay: Lars Jacobson
Starring: Colleen Porch
Based roughly on the true story of Andrea Yates, Baby Blues is a psychological horror film which gets an A for effort but unfortunately comes up short when it comes to true shocks.
The film is co directed by first timer Lars Jacobson and the slightly more seasoned Amardeep Kaleka is visually interesting for the most part. For a made for DVD movie the film has a very polished feel to it, with much of the film drenched in some colourful hues. The two directors clearly know how to craft a film and isolated scenes do cause a considerable amount of tension.
Unfortunately the film falls down on it's lack of ability to engage in it's central themes of filicide (to kill one's children) and mental anguish instead concentrating on creating a subverted hack and slash feature. This is a shame because it's not as if the actors couldn't pull of the more complex aspects of their characters. In fact praise should go to the films lead Colleen Porch whose manages to hide the fact that she is quite attractive and give her mental break down a respectable amount of pathos.
The film gives it's secrets away far too quickly and fall into the trap of becoming a mundane film that hardly stands out from it's predecessors. With this said, this does mean that I get to recommend to you the even more demented Frailty by Bill Paxton which travels similar paths but is far more confident in it's craft. Baby Blue had an interesting idea, but unfortunately it decided to play it safe, something that many wouldn't want to see in a horror film.
