Gothic cinema is not dead or undead by any means, thanks to directors Andy Crane and Nathan Shepka. In the old Hammer Studios-styled religious horror film The Baby in the Basket, from a script by Tom Jolliffe, you can smell the peat and mildew and hear your footfalls on the stones of the church. Event-wise, the plot has been done recently in the likes of Immaculate and The First Omen. Perhaps more accurately, this resembles The Omen (the original) with flourishes from one of the most stylish Hammer films, Peter Sasdy’s Taste The Blood of Dracula.
The picture is set in 1942 against the backdrop of World War II raging on. The nuns of the isolated Scottish monastery St. Augustine’s are preparing for an incoming storm. During the evening, a baby in a basket is left on the doorstep, and the sisters take it in. As the night goes on, Sister Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne) suspects the child is the son of the Devil. She hears voices and is tempted by sexual images of herself and a young handyman named Daniel (Nathan Shepka).
“…Sister Agnes suspects the child is the son of the Devil.”
The film uses familiar tropes of a demonic baby in human form. Yet, the style, images, frame composition, and sheer beauty of the forbidden monastery and surrounding lands make The Baby in the Basket a bleak trip to hell in a holy place. Musically, composer David Belsey strikes the proper balance of filling the moments with eerieness while never taking away from the tasteful use of silence. A cello solo by Joanna Wilson is haunting and powerful.
You have a first-tier cast of characters who shuffle amongst the gray landscape and deep nights. Doig-Thorne sells that her character truly believes this baby is pure evil. Michaela Longden, Elle O’Hara, and Lisa Riesner, as the other sisters, are good, feeling genuinely afraid throughout, though some physical actions are a bit stilted. Shepka is charming and good-looking enough to pull his part off. Stealing the show is Maryam d’Abo as Mother Superior. She brings to mind Marita Hunt as Baroness Meinster from Hammer’s Brides of Dracula.
The Baby in the Basket is gothic dread at its best if one can overlook the derivative story and the occasional stiffness from the acting. Animal cruelty is a hot-button issue for me in film, so I will warn you that there’s a brutal killing of an injured bird, which, while excessive, serves the story. The church’s dark corridors trap the sexually repressed sisters, who wish to wantonly enact upon their desires.
"…gothic dread at its best..."
