Wishbaby

My Ratings: Story 1.25 : Direction 1.25 : Pace 0.75 : Acting 0.50 : Entertaining 1.00 Total 4.75 out of 10.00

It's the imagination and the concept of the story that kept me watching this movie. A schoolgirl rescues an elderly woman from an abusive teen gang. For her bravery and mettle, the woman imparts upon her the secret of the Wishbaby. For the Wishbaby to function it requires the creator's will and love. This is given in its genesis as the owner moulds wax, cuts and shapes cloth, each and every act imbues it with life and power. Once the form is accomplished then comes the ritual burial. From which it will be birthed from mother nature. Once born of the Earth the Wishbaby is yours and it can begin to grant your wishes.

As always, with tales of wishing you have to be careful what you wish for. Mostly, the wishes it grants, the wishes in the usual manner. The abused woman wishes harm to the one who hurt her. He gets hurt. I have to say, I particularly liked the idea of The Governess. Though the Wishbaby carries out the physical deed, The Governess appears to be a sorceress. For when the Wishbaby comes you hear a baby crying and a woman singing a strange lullaby. This woman, we later learn, is The Governess. In truth, it appears to be The Governess who does most of the dirty deeds. I especially like the way she brought the estranged mother back to her children. Though I didn't like the way she made the social workers "Get Lost!"

Though Stephen W Parsons has a great concept, the story needed to be structured better. There are moments when the story slips. It doesn't help that he doesn't rectify the problem with his direction. It just pulls the viewer further out of the story and film.

Parsons' has a great eye for composition and using camera angles to build the atmosphere. I particularly liked the scene where the old woman enters the subway. The interior, dark, her shape a silhouette in the light at the end of the tunnel. Then the youths enter, and the sight of their four shadowy profiles entering the tunnel gives you a sense of unease. You know it will not end well.

The trouble is this is sometimes hit and miss. In the above scene, it works. However, as the segment continues, and the schoolgirl comes to the woman's rescue, the direction and filming falter. The scene loses power as you know they're dragging a mannequin over the tarmac and not the woman. This isn't down to bad special effects, though it didn't help. No, it's primarily down to how Parsons' shoot the scene. Luckily there are not too many scenes like this. Enough to reduce your enjoyment of the film. My main irk with his direction though was his overrun scenes. There are quite a few. The worst one being when the schoolgirl catches her brother drugging up. Parsons' stays on her for too long. She hasn't the skill to hold the camera or the audience for this length of time. Her segments in this scene feel awkward, and all for the wrong reasons.

However, I have to say the soundtrack is bloody awesome. I loved the haunting street beats, which added immensely to the urban feel of the story. I could watch this film again just for the music. Great work, guys.

Now, this film has a decent cast since we have Fenella Fielding as the elderly woman, Eve. She comes across with grace and style, as always. Tony Marshall (long-standing actor in Casualty) was the male social worker. And Claire Cox as The Governess. These established actors and actresses add strength to the movie. However, it's the lead roles that showed great promise. Tiana Benjamin had great power and strength when she was in an adversarial scene. However, she dropped a lot of on-screen presence when the story called for her to be alone and emotional - but this is one of her first films; she was much better in Fast Girls. It was Doc Brown (now known as Ben Bailey Smith) as her brother Colin, who came across well in all his scenes.

This is an imaginative and enjoyable film. Even though your attention and focus may slip in a few places. It's still worth one watch. This film is for the fans of the horror genre and the lovers of dark fantasy. Should you be on lockdown, this is one film that would be worth tracking down... as long as you don't pay too much for it. Even a couple of quid rental charge would be worth it.

Come on and push your perambulator over to my Absolute Horror and Obsidian Dreams lists to see where this little blue baby ranked.

Take Care and Stay Well.

What an achievement! Parsons tries an experiment as radical as that in "The Inmost Light" or "The Great God Pan"--he tries to summon up into our own day the elder, eldritch enchantment of Machen's "The White People." What if the evil and magic that lay dormant since that tale were to surface again in our day, in such different circumstances? Parsons seems to realize that if the Machen magic was ever genuine, then it has to be capable of transplant into our profane and grubby age, too. Was it all merely a Golden Dawn affectation? No indeed. Machen allows characters to contact a timeless world of (anti-)Sacred time and to unleash it in their own. Thus it must be accessible from any point in history. And that experiment succeeds: Machen's magic survives in a world he never made.

But "Wish Baby" is far from being some windy essay like this one. It is a powerful cautionary tale and a traditionally spooky, absolutely intimidating and frightening tale told with prime senstivity towards the truly weird! This film has got to be accorded wider distribution! Robert M. Price

One thing that UK film makers have always been good at is horror that hits the mark at the right time, and this is just what Stephen W. Parsons has done with Wishbaby.

Starring Tiana Benjamin (Eastenders/Harry Potter), Fenella Fielding (Carry on Screamng) and featuring Doc Brown, this has a plot and flow that could survive without these 'names'.

Watching at first, you wonder if it is going to be good, but very soon, you sense the raw storytelling, and that builds up to create a film that will have you thinking about various things long after the final credits (and on that subject, watch the final part of the film after the credits).

All I can say, is that this is a well thought out film, without the gloss that HAS to be placed into Hollywood productions, and that makes it worthy to be on the shelf of all horror fans.

I saw a version that was 95% complete, and I await with anticipation for the final cut.

Joe Jenkins Moonworks Media

I saw a rough cut of this movie at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland. To be honest, when I heard the premise (a doll that grants wishes) I thought it was going to be dreadful. The surprise was on me. There was nothing cheesy about this movie--it was creepy and fascinating from start to finish.

Drawing from Lovecraft, modern London, and the darkest of fairy tales, this movie has both heart and scare. The young lead actress is fantastic, and the "Governess" character will give you nightmares. The direction is terrific, as is the writing.

See it in the theater if you can. Rent it if you can't.

I'm thinking I need to make a "Wishbaby" prop for Halloween...

Is this the first black British horror film ever? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is certainly the first black British horror film featuring such an ugly and mischievous blue baby. The search goes on for wacky, off the wall concepts to scare the whits out of people in the hope of coming up with something weird enough to grab worldwide attention. The Wishbaby tack is to ground the story in an eminently ordinary, urban landscape - bleak, gritty, impoverished - and then unleash maximum mayhem. Forget mutant viruses, blood dripping vampires and other such fantastical inventions. First time director Steve Parson begins with a simple, all too familiar big city incident: slightly eccentric old lady, Fenella Fielding, is being 'happy slapped' by a nasty gang of mixed race teens, then is rescued by a young black girl, Tiana Benjamin, who is carrying lots of her own troubles but still feels inspired to help others. Her reward? The old lady helps her to make a magic doll – a less than cuddly blue Wishbaby – which is meant to help solve the girl's woes but instead inadvertently raises hell by, among other misdemeanors, releasing the old lady's dead Governess, Claire Cox, from some form of astral prison. Not a good idea. Needless to say, this ugly fairytale is designed from younger audiences and Parson has loaded it with a sharp soundtrack from the UK's edgiest music makers to help the supernatural goings on seem even more terrifying.