Following his low-budget splatter “KFC”, which, rather surprisingly for a film of its genre, managed to have a great festival run, Le Binh Giang returns with the even more onerous “Rock-a-bye Baby”, a movie that manages to combine POV horror with slasher and even avant-garde elements.
Rock-a-bye Baby screened at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
The film begins with Tran Long, a vlogger/influencer who runs an internet broadcasting channel called “Memory of Murder”, infiltrating actual crime scenes to reveal three murder stories to his subscribers. Initially presented in mobile screen format, including the many comments Long receives, eventually the film moves beyond him, taking the point of view of the perpetrators and their victims, and showing the actual crimes, or at least the version the blogger had in his mind. Moving among the two approaches is what gives the film its avant-garde hypostases, but as time passes, the slasher/splatter elements come to the fore, as the story and its presentation becomes more and more grotesque. A man who murdered not only his beloved woman, but also his parents, a man who infiltrated a family-run jewelry store and killed the entire household, and a man who, trapped in gambling debt, sought help from his ex-girlfriend but ended up killing her, conclude the trilogy of horror here.
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For people who did watch “KFC”, which also got physical releases from Dekanalog and Spectrum, you might have thought that Le went too far, with the worms scene in particular being quite grotesque. Here, however, the Vietnamese filmmaker went much further, probably because he had a bigger budget in his hands (or maybe because he realized how to implement it better) coming up with a movie that starts in relatively tame fashion, but becomes more grotesque and more blood-soaked as time passes. In that fashion, by the third segment, the movie has become a b-movie slasher, reminding of similar productions from the US, retaining, though, the aforementioned avant-garde/meta level, a chaotic style of storytelling, and a sense of sensualism that eventually becomes part of the narrative through a lengthy and rather steamy sex scene.
Lastly, the very finale, which starts dealing with embryos in a number of capacities, deems the movie one definite not for sensitive stomachs, but also manages to move “Rock-a-bye Baby” even further in the path it started on from the beginning, thus being even more consistent, even in the particular, rather extreme path.
The acting, expectedly, follows the same rules, with the protagonists presenting their characters as a kind of maniacal caricatures, although the cruelty they eventually show, is quite grounded essentially. The exception is Tran Phong who plays Tran Long, who remains a caricature from beginning to end, practically functioning as comic relief. Huu Vi, who plays Nguyen Duc Nhat, the perpetrator of the last segment, is the one stands out however, highlighting his psychopathy in the most impactful fashion, while gorgeous Thuy Tram, who plays his ex-girlfriend, is the main source of sensualism in the movie.
Tang Cong Minh's cinematography captures both the brutality and the suffocating settings the movie takes place in in the grittiest fashion, while the mobile phone scenes are purposefully amateurish, in a way, though, that definitely works for the movie. Than Hang's editing induces the movie with a relatively fast pace, that definitely works well for the overall aesthetics, while finding his apogee in the transition scenes from vlogging to “reality”.
Lastly, the rock-a-bye baby lullaby that is heard in the film adds a sense of irony that actually permeates the movie and extends to the whole concept of Youtubers and the consequences of social media overuse, in an aspect, though, that is definitely buried under the violence.
“Rock-a-bye Baby” is a truly gritty slasher that will definitely apply to people who enjoy intense amounts of violence in their movies, as much as those who like their films with no kind of political correctness.
