2023 Baby Blue

• Directed by: Adam Mason
• Written by: Simon Boyes, Adam Mason
• Stars: Aramis Knight, Ally Loannides, Cyrus Arnold
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xz_xV7pSh8

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A group of young people attempt a true crime documentary about the deceased serial killer Baby Blue who might still be continuing his work from beyond the grave. There were a lot of elements that we’ve seen before, but it’s well put together with a lot of interesting touches that kept it interesting enough to entertain. We both enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on Laura, in an interrogation room, being questioned for murder. “He made me do it.” Who? “Blue!” She’s possessed by Baby Blue and starts singing there in the interrogation room. She then kills herself with a pencil. Credits roll.

Three half-siblings argue about the merit of making bad prank videos. August, Alice, and J.J. all seem to hate what they’re doing, but they put on the gorilla suit and start filming. Their manager, Mo, hates it; it’s not cutting edge. He wants them to do “true crime” instead. He then fires the group. Alice thinks of doing a film about The Redmont, a place with a lot of deaths. She shows them a video of a man named Kelvin being attacked in an elevator by something invisible and then jumping off the roof. It’s a supernatural true crime, and they decide to investigate.

They stop to talk to Joy, the last person to see Kelvin Jones alive. She warns them that they’re all going to die if they keep investigating. Baby Blue will kill them all; he was the first victim of the Redmont. They go to the Redmont and meet the manager, Bud. The power to the apartment has been shut off, so it’s all dark and creepy– and there are rats.

As April, JJ, and Hutch keep the property manager busy in Kelvin’s apartment, August goes up to the roof. JJ finds a bloody cellphone that used to belong to Kelvin, and upstairs, August hears someone singing a song. Everything that happened to Kelvin now happens to August– but he doesn’t die.

The group goes home and opens Kelvin’s phone. It’s got a video from Kelvin on it, saying that this is really Baby Blue’s phone, and it’s cursed. He warns them not to watch the other video on the phone, which cannot be deleted. Can an iPhone video really be cursed? JJ wants to watch it, but the others aren’t so sure. They toss the phone.

Hutch, on the other hand, digs out the phone and makes his own video with August. We don’t see much of the video, but it seems to involve cannibalism. Hutch then throws the phone into the ocean. They wonder if they’re cursed now.

They are.

Baby Blue comes to Hutch that night, and they have a conversation before Hutch cuts his own throat.

In the morning, JJ has done more research, and they learn there have been many more Baby Blue suicides. August, meanwhile, is freaking out because he knows he watched the video. They interview Manos Sloane about one of the deaths. He sold the phone to Kelvin after his son David bought it.

David lives in the dark basement, strapped to a table to keep him from killing himself. David tells his story; Baby Blue got inside his head. “He goes inside you until he’s in control. He slaughtered over 30 people when he was alive. How many more since he died?” They set up remote cameras to watch over David that night when Baby Blue comes to him. August admits he watched the video, and he’s terrified.

They go to see Ellen, a psychic, to help. She touches the cursed phone and immediately gets taken over. She’s a hoot. She suggests returning the cursed phone to its owner, and maybe the spirit will rest then.

They take August to a motel, tie him up, and gag him for his own safety. “We shoulda done that years ago,” JJ quips. JJ and Alice snoop and find out where Baby Blue lived with his mother and sister. Mama Blue and Sadie Blue still live in the old house in the country, and they invite the siblings inside. Mama says her son didn’t do anything wrong, since all his victims were sinners. Mama explains that she buried Blue’s ashes in the backyard, but she also drugged their drinks, which turned out to be breast milk.

Meanwhile, Baby Blue and August have an all-day conversation.

JJ wakes up chained to a bed with a pacifier as Mama sings the Baby Blue song as she milks herself. In the basement, Sadie makes Alice watch the cursed video of Blue’s suicide. Sadie relents and lets Alice go, and she runs right outside to bury the iPhone. Sadie then kills Mama and releases JJ.

Before she can bury the phone, Baby Blue possesses Alice, who hangs herself. Surprisingly, back at the motel, August puts up quite a resistance to Blue. Blue then comes to JJ and taunts him, but JJ never actually watched the video. JJ drops the phone into Blue’s grave. Blue puffs into a cloud of red flame. And suddenly, Alice wakes up.

In the morning, Alice and JJ return to find August in the motel, bloody but alive. The group then finds the suicide tape online, and now everyone can see it. August admits it was him.

Brian’s Commentary

There are lots of weird little visual details that you have to be paying attention to notice, which add some fun depth to this.

Milk is disgusting, no matter what it comes out of.

There are lots of cameras, and the characters are filmmakers, but it’s not a found footage film. Overall, it’s not bad!

Kevin’s Commentary

The IMDB description refers to the gang who are clearly in their 20s as teenagers, but at least they don’t play that up and aren’t shown going to high school.

If you watch closely, you can see that JJ doesn’t believe in stop signs when he drives.

Little details like smoke coming out of the back of Baby Blue’s head when he was having a cigarette was a nice touch too. Plus it’s a movie that will make you want to have a nice glass of milk afterward.

I thought it was really good.