There’s horror, there’s cult horror and then there’s whatever the hell Attack of the Adult Babies is. Part contemporary Benny Hill sketch, part micro-budget Troma-style slasher, it falls into what is quite possibly the weirdest of cracks in British pop-culture: politically-motivated gross-out comedies filled to the brim with poo jokes directed by Paddy from Emmerdale. Dominic Brunt is actually a fairly accomplished genre director (check out his equally dizzying micro thriller Bait from a few years ago if you don’t believe me), but Adult Babies is something totally, maniacally different in every sense of the word. Not just to Brunt’s own stuff, but pretty much everything else that’s ever seen the light of a projector or TV screen too.
Throw absolutely every last hang-up you might have about unconventional storytelling, scatological humour and hyper-cheap, porno-looking cinematography out the window and you might just have some fun here. It’s a super basic, stripped back story of the world’s most uncomfortable family outing; a couple of teenagers forced into breaking into a secure country manor house to steal some sensitive political documents. Only when they get inside, they’re met by who else but a hefty group of Britain’s most powerful old men, all dressed up and acting like babies.
Everything after that is a bit of a blur of soiled old-man-nappies, sexy latex nurse costumes and the occasional bout of good old fashioned hyper-violence. To some (see: most), it’ll be totally, one-million-percent unwatchable and probably one of the strangest cinematic experiences of your life. But to that very specific little, British-horror themed niche, Adult Babies is an absolute barnstormer of a genre release. The sort of deranged, balls-to-the-wall grossness that only ever seems to show up once in a generation; the confidence and absolute freedom of storytelling is unparalleled.
Never in your life will you ever see anything like this again, (unless for whatever reason Brunt decides to hammer out a sequel), and that, in any case, deserves some sort of acclaim. We spend our lives as film fans and cinema-goers, constantly ribbing on studios and established talent for their sequels, remakes and generally unoriginal movie-making. So when something like this comes along – a wild and fiercely shameless celebration of nastiness and all-out bad taste – it’s at least worth recognising just how wholeheartedly it stands out from the crowd.
Love it or loathe it, Dominic Brunt has made a truly original, and surprisingly meaningful British horror-comedy in the most extreme way possible, and that is no easy feat. It’s vile and repugnant and despicably funny, and deserves to be experienced at least once, even if you well and truly hate it.
