The upcoming Guillermo del Toro-produced Sci-Fi/Horror film SPLICE with its effed up baby-face billboards hits theaters this Friday, June 4th, and what better way to celebrate (or recoil in disgusting terror) than to count down the 5 Creepiest Baby Creatures in Film!
5. Frank & Lenore’s newborn baby – It’s Alive (1974)
For years, Lenore Davis has been using birth control, but when she and her husband Frank decide to have another child, she begins taking an experimental fertility drug designed to counter-act the contraceptive. The result is a pregnancy drenched in TERROR…and that purplish, brownish, afterbirthy stuff. If having a baby wasn’t gross or scary enough, this little angel came jam packed with fangs, claws and it violently lashes out at anything around when it gets scared. Now most creatures, from time to time, may experience “Fight or Flight” situations where one must choose to stay and fight or escape. This little bastard does both! It goes for the jugular and then leaps away like an demented little Jackelope. Holy hell fellas, wrap it up!
4. Allison’s dead baby – Trainspotting (1996)
Now, I’m no prude. I’ve tried my fair share of illegal substances and had many interesting experiences, but one thing I’ve never tried is Heroin. However, I have seen the film Trainspotting and if Heroin withdrawal causes you to see your best friend’s dead baby crawling on the ceiling before rotating its 180° degrees and falling on your face, well then, COUNT ME THE FUCK OUT! If this baby weren’t a figment of your drug-addled imagination, you could probably shoo it out of your house with a broom like a confused pigeon. But this ain’t no pigeon, baby. (Baby pun. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself) So, if you’re afraid that someone you know may be in need of help? Don’t give them an intervention, just show them this movie. The most effective 94 minute anti-drug commercial ever put to celluloid.
3. Henry Spencer’s mutant child – Eraserhead (1977)
David Lynch, The King of Creepiness himself, graces our list at number 3 with this abominable little cutie pie. Part human and part chicken-pox riddled goo freak. This creature just needs a little love, that’s all. Don’t you just want hold it and sing to it and run away from it as soon as possible?! Lynch once in said in an interview that a lot of the ideas for his films come from dreams. This is what he sees when it’s “beddy-bye time for Bonzo”?! AWFULTASTIC!
2. Zombie Baby – Braindead a.k.a. Dead Alive (1992)
Peter Jackson has a sick and twisted sense of humor…and we love it! Only his Kiwi brain could think up something as demented as the vile, little zombie infant pictured above. I mean seriously?! How many times do you have to warn someone to never bring a plague infected Sumatran Rat-Monkey back from Skull Island before they realize that it’s a bad idea. Check out the hilariously creepy scene where the baby gets loose in the park and the protagonist stomps on its head and beats it against a swing set. Classic Jackson!
1. Kuato – Total Recall (1990)
Open your mind fellow nerds of Earth (and Mars) and listen to me when I say it’s not a tumor!* It’s Kuato! The telepathic mutant from Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 masterpiece. Insightful and greasy, this gooey little fella just needs two more fingers and a pair of legs and he could give ol’ Ed Asner a run for his money. Look out ladies! He can read your horoscope without even reading today’s paper AND he and his grown-up host share a penis! What a catch!
So there you have it, nerds and nerdettes. The 5 Creepiest Baby Creatures in Film. Check back here at Nerdist in a few days for my full review of SPLICE. What’s that? Huh? Speak up. You said you want see Marmaduke this weekend but you’re too embarrassed to ask your friends to go with you? Then join on me (@MrAdamGreenwood) on Twitter Friday, June 4th at 1:45pm EST for a live scene-by-scene mocking.
Until the next swath of creepy progeny…
* Kindergarten Cop reference = free of charge.
Images: Warner Bros., Trimark, TriStar
any one ever see Combat Shock? One of Troma’s finest. The baby was obviously an Ereaserhead ripoff, and a sock puppet, but still seriously creepy…
I can feel my uterus shriveling up just looking at the mutant babies. As if friend’s children haven’t already completely scared me off them already…
Kuato definitely wins. He already runs a gang of mutants, and it’s as if George is still pregnant with him!
The Satan baby from the Passion of the Christ was a rather nice touch.
http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/satan_and_demon_baby.jpg
I imagine he would make a similar face shortly after breastfeeding.
Henry and Mary’s “baby” in Eraserhead messed my shit up. In heaven, everything is fine… until your goosenecked mutant Admiral Ackbar-baby starts wailing and drooling!!!! AUGH!
Oh wow, I just watched my ovaries leave, carrying one of those little hobo sticks with the polka dotted handkerchief on the end…
And I agree with Kirk… Gage from Pet Sematary fucked me up for years, especially as he looked like a little boy I used to baby sit at the time.
I guess an honorable mention should have gone to that little baby in the jar from House of 1000 corpses. I know you probably remember his name. Everytime in a movie when I see a fetus in a jar I get creeped the fuck out something fierce.
Udo Kier in Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom is pretty creepy child as well. http://www.trondheim-filmklubb.no/film/tfk/h99/bilder/riket2.jpg
“it’s not a tumor” is one of my favorite movie quotes!
Creepiest baby ever? Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.
shiver
“SATAN IS HIS FATHER!!!!”
Rosemary’s Baby is pretty creepy. He has his father’s eyes, you know.
KUATO LIVES!!!!!
great picks! Kuato looks like super sinewy Jim Belushi.
No one said Kuato was a baby. Kuato is CLEARLY a CREATURE-baby, though. That’s what I thinks!
Grace, the baby brought back from the dead by its mother’s will power. Gives breastfeeding a whole new name. And I agree the Eraserhead baby should have been #1, that thing is sick.
YES! I am proud to say I’ve seen all of these. It’s Alive was the first thing I thought of when I read the intro to this. Well played.
I think that the zombie baby from Dead Alive is super cute! That scene in the park is so good!
Gage in Pet Sematary. The stuff of Nightmares.
seriously i thought there wasn’t anything else that would make me NOT want to have children or take care of them……that Nerdist.com, thanks for the baby repellant!!!
sssssssssssssssssssssssso creepie now i can not sleep !@#$%!@
I am go glad to see the Dead Alive baby up there. That baby made me terrified of babies for years after seeing that film…
Eraserhead baby should be number 1. Just thinking about it males me shudder. The sound it makes…
I was expecting Eraserhead baby to be #1! I think it’s the most terrifying thing I have ever seen EVER.
Nerd alarm! Does Kuato strictly count as a baby? 😉 He’s baby… ish, physically, but clearly fully functioning. It’s like having conjoined twin myslexia but instead of a stillborn baby, it’s Big Figure from “Watchmen” running the show from your groin. Holy Christmas!
That’s a good list alright! I wanted to see the dead born zombie baby from the Dawn of the Dead remake though, but I guess I found that one scary because that kid looks on the spot like one of me friends, and he’s an grown up! (Guess I should be more afraid of him than the baby to be fair)!
Anyway, this was me a fine list, more nerd lists!!!
Wow. im never having kids.