Cry-Baby

I had never heard of Cry-Baby before and anything I knew before watching it was from the image on Prime Video. I had assumed it was primarily a teen romance drama. After watching the first few scenes I didn’t really know what to make of it. However, as the film progressed it appeared to be a musical in the same vein as grease, but only if that vein had been injected with a hefty dose of methamphetamine.

I felt that the film was more of an offbeat comedy or a spoof than anything else… once I came to this conclusion, I started to enjoy the film a lot more. I appreciated the 1950s setting and the fact that the tone is somewhat different to other films set in this period. Musicals aren’t really my thing, but the music aspect of the film was definitely bearable for me and even entertaining at times for its comedic worth.

The film centres around a family of misfits which I felt was like a poor attempt at mimicking The Addams Family. The character of Hatchet Face will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life and the French kissing scene was a particularly difficult watch and made me feel physically sick.

The highlight for me was Willem Dafoe as a prison officer putting Cry-Baby to bed and spanking him. This is easily one of my top 5 cameo appearances, but I can’t give credit to the director or scriptwriter for this – as it was apparently completely improvised. I also enjoyed Cry-Baby’s explanation of why he doesn’t like lightning, where he rips his shirt open to reveal a chest tattoo of an electric chair which represents the execution of his parents. Another highlight was Wanda using her tits to attack a man during the brawl, revealing that Cry-Baby’s sister wasn’t actually being figurative when she said that in their family, their “bazooms” are their weapons.

I didn’t expect I would enjoy this film, but once I got past the poor excuse for a plot and cheesy dialogue and accepted that it was all probably intentional, I found the film to be quite amusing and occasionally hilarious.

3.5 stars out of 5