The Baby

It is very well done. ... It is very funny.

It is a well-executed addition to the demonic infant genre, but it is what The Baby has to say about motherhood as a choice that makes it really stand out.

The Baby isn’t subtle. It isn’t polite. It’s sometimes extremely silly. And its unusual juxtaposition of a darling baby boy and heaps of bloody, gory violence surely will not appeal to everyone. But if you can live with all of the above, it’s more than just fun—it’s also a whole lot smarter and more thought-provoking than most of the shows sucking up all the attention this month.

The way the show is put together, from the performances to the score to the direction — which especially works overtime on both sides of the horror-comedy coin — allows for it to work as an effective piece of storytelling instead of a parody.

What makes The Baby more than a one-joke story is the empathy it has for people at every point on the parenting spectrum. ... What starts as a surreal, frequently gory comedy evolves, over the six episodes made available for advance screening, into something closer to “elevated horror” in the Hereditary mold. But the change in tone doesn’t make the story any less compelling.

“The Baby” really seems to be having fun the more it leans into its Brothers Grimm-adjacent DNA. Rather than a Rumplestiltskin type sent to hound Natasha until she breaks, it’s a worldless little tyke in a 15-pound package.

The show takes an unfortunate turn at a certain point, when it feels the need to take the themes it has been adroitly finessing and make them explicit and grindingly literal. ... Regardless, there’s pleasure in de Swarte’s portrayal of the dogged, take-no-prisoners Natasha and in the sweetly addled performance of the newcomer Amber Grappy as Natasha’s younger sister. And there’s the baby.

While the first episode takes a bit of time to get going, once it does it’s clear there’s some “Servant”-like dark fun to be had watching this “Baby.”

Any fan of demonic-kid horror will obviously be a natural mark for this series, as might fans of British horror comedies. That said, it’s hard not to feel as though a lot has been left on the table. Given the premise—again, let me repeat, a demon baby!—one would not expect this series to feel so repetitive and, at times, even restrained, from the costume choices to the disaster scenes. There’s an excellent satire in here and also a blood-curdling horror story, but it seems neither has quite learned how to walk.

The show becomes uneven in tone, too reliant on horror tropes (at one point we detour into Children of the Corn territory) and dull secondary storylines. The horror is also pushed too far.