The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2013.[2] The film is available on VOD beginning on July 25, 2013, before its theatrical release on September 6, 2013.
Plot
An expectant couple move into a haunted fixer-upper in New Orleans. There, they encounter a neighbour named F'resnel who tells them about the bloody history of their house.
Vanessa and her husband, Jack, exhibiting a certain carelessness in their house hunting, buy a foreboding wreck of a place in New Orleans that the local residents have given demonic nicknames like "House of Blood". Vanessa is already extremely pregnant when they move in, and soon she is talking like Regan from The Exorcist. The Vatican sends ghost hunters, Father Padrigo and Father Sebastian to deal with the situation. Vanessa's Wiccan Sister Marjorie also joins her and Jack, and tries to break the curse on the house with her spell-craft ritual acts of magic. All three fail when, after a normal baby is born to Vanessa, a demonic horned baby is also born. The baby attacks and in the ensuing gory carnage Marjorie, two policemen, and Father Padrigo die, before Jack kills the demon baby with a floor lamp.
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 31% based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 4.43/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Though its brand of immature comedy may appeal to some, Hell Baby misses the mark with much of its humor, rendering it a largely ineffective -- and often crass -- genre sendup."[3] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[4]
Badass Digest called the movie "silly, lowbrow, and funny."[5]CraveOnline called it a "triumph of independence" and a "genuinely hilarious farce."[6] TheDissolve said, "Hell Baby falls unmistakably on the "comedy" side of the horror-comedy divide. It isn't overly concerned with being scary, just with delivering a steady stream of laughs."[7]
Deadline Hollywood reported that the movie was acquired by Millennium Films for U.S. Distribution and was slated to be released in the Fall of 2013.[8]
