This weekend sees a new found footage horror movie, Devil’s Due, arrive in theaters. And it’s about everybody’s favorite subject, Satanic babies. Where does Devil’s Due fall in the power ranking of Satanic children? Let’s find out!
We’ll be taking this from best to worst, and sticking to essentially unholy terrors, although yes, It’s Alive! and The Brood are both great horror movies you should check out. And, as a result, our first movie isn’t a surprise…
<!–pagetitle:Rosemary’s Baby (1968)–>
Arguably Rosemary’s Baby is one of the defining horror movies about Satan, and still one of the best. The cast included top-notch actors like John Cassavettes and Ruth Gordon, and it was directed by Roman Polanski. In other words, it doesn’t get better than this. Although it gets close.
<!–pagetitle:Hell Baby–>
No, this does not rank so highly because they filmed a big chunk of it at our beloved editor-in-chief’s house, it ranks so highly because it fries stale horror cliches for the sake of comedy, and the fact that Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant pretty much put every talented person they knew into the mix definitely helps.
You might notice that the second highest-ranking movie here is a parody. You can imagine what that bodes for the rest of the list.
<!–pagetitle:The Omen (1976)–>
The Omen is largely a good movie despite itself. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick actually play a convincing married couple, and Harvey Spencer Stephens is one creepy little brat. But the movie hasn’t aged well, especially compared to the movies it’s obviously inspired by. It’s still good creepy fun, but the best it can do is third.
Probably one of the most shameless things The Asylum has ever done, this movie exists for literally no other reason than to be on video store shelves by 12/12/12. Really, “shameless” doesn’t even begin to cover it; the line “Are you aware your baby was born on 12/12/12?” is actually uttered with a straight face, and most of the “cinematography” is cribbed directly from Paranormal Activity. That said, there is something about a crappy movie that knows exactly what it is, and this is actually pretty charming in how unrelentingly cheesy it is.
<!–pagetitle:Beyond The Door–>
One of the most legendary bad movies ever made, and for hilariously spectacular reasons. This Italian (because of course) production is basically Rosemary’s Baby meets The Exorcist and is exactly as stupid as that pitch sounds on paper. And, yet, it is impossible not to enjoy the hell out of this movie; it’s simply so terrible, and one of the worst victims of Italian filmmakers not shooting sync sound for some baffling reason, that it goes around the bend and becomes a hoot.
<!–pagetitle:Devil’s Due–>
One has to give the filmmakers of Devil’s Due credit for actually committing to the found footage conceit while not using it as an excuse to make a shoddy movie; this is actually a pretty well-made film, visually, and they bothered to put together a decent cast who really try. That said, the script is so bad it hits each of the cliches, from the moving rubber baby belly to the screaming priest to , to the point where I checked to ensure this wasn’t a stealth remake of Beyond The Door on the last slide.
<!–pagetitle:Blessed–>
This came out in 2004. You’ve never heard of this movie, despite it starring Heather Graham, because it was a direct-to-video release. Yes, it’s that bad. Yes, I would recommend seeing Devil’s Due above this. Have we mentioned it’s bad?
<!–pagetitle:Born (2007)–>
This movie features Kane Hodder as a priest, and the above trailer is from their official YouTube channel. While seeing Alison Brie as a homicidal pregnant lady is actually pretty fun, that first sentence should really tell you everything you need to know about Born.
Agree? Disagree? Think we missed one? Let us know.