'Big Baby' Review: A Bloody Slasher with Plenty of Carnage - FrightFest 2026
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Becca Johnson - August 28, 2026
Following up on his creature feature Little Bites from 2024, director Spider One is back on the horror scene with Big Baby, a slasher film with a meta twist. Brandon Scott (Blair Witch) stars as a screenwriter who’s recurring nightmare involving a maniac killer in a baby mask serves as an inspiration for his new script. As more nightmares, visions and real life terror begin to terrorise his sanity, he finds himself in a desperate struggle to control his writing, his reality, and who will be Big Baby’s next victim.
With plenty of kills delivered by a scarily designed villain, Big Baby offers strong performances and plenty of gore, even if its constant blurring of reality and fiction begins to wear thin before the runtime is out.
At the centre of Big Baby is an intriguing mystery, as struggling screenwriter Brandon begins seeing increasingly vivid visions of a fictional killer brutally murdering victims. The lines between imagination and reality quickly blur, raising the question of whether Brandon himself could somehow be responsible for the heinous acts, or whether everything is simply happening inside his head. It's a fun, meta premise that should particularly appeal to horror fans, playing with the relationship between a writer and the monster they've created. Scott throws himself into the role, effectively navigating Brandon's escalating emotion and rage as his grip on reality begins to loosen. There's a relationship horror unfolding alongside the slasher antics too, as his increasingly erratic behaviour puts a strain on his relationship with Kate, played by Krsy Fox (Terrifier 3). Scott and Fox sell both sides of the couple convincingly, whether loved-up and laughing together or caught in increasingly heated arguments, with Fox once again proving a welcome presence within the genre. There’s definitely plenty of solid themes and ideas present.
Unfortunately, Big Baby begins to wear out its welcome surprisingly quickly. Once the premise kicks into gear, a repetitive pattern emerges: Big Baby claims another victim, Brandon spirals further into his delusions, and another argument with Kate inevitably follows. The initial question of whether the killer exists or is simply a product of Brandon's fractured mind is an intriguing one, but the screenplay lacks the depth needed to sustain that uncertainty for long, making several developments easier to predict than they perhaps should be. At 103 minutes, the runtime doesn't help matters either, with the limited ideas at play stretched further than necessary. What begins as an excitingly unpredictable meta-slasher gradually becomes easier to second-guess, with events often playing out exactly as expected.
Whenever the story begins to wane, the horror thankfully comes in clutch. Big Baby offers up a generous number of kills, rarely shying away from the money shot and providing plenty of gore in the process. Random rampages from the titular killer keep the body count high, including a particularly enjoyable appearance from another Terrifier alum and genre favourite Catherine Corcoran. The kills themselves aren't especially inventive or likely to linger long in the memory, but there's enough bloodshed on display to keep horror fans entertained when the narrative starts to drag. Helping matters considerably is Big Baby himself, whose deeply unsettling design and horrifying mask give the slasher a genuinely creepy presence. The story may lose some of its bite as it progresses, but its villain certainly doesn’t.
Big Baby has plenty going for it, from a creepy central villain and buckets of gore to committed performances and an initially intriguing meta premise. Its repetitive structure and predictable developments prevent the concept from reaching its full potential, but Spider One knows how to deliver the bloody goods when it matters most. Big Baby may run out of ideas before it runs out of victims, but there’s enough slasher fun here to make the carnage worthwhile.
'Big Baby' had it's UK premiere at FrightFest London 2026.
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