Dumpster Baby (2000 Video) User Reviews

Should have won an Oscar for Sound Editing

[jwade-6 · 4/10 · 2 June 2007]

Ha ha, just kidding. The sound is awful. The actors were indecipherable for most of the film.

It's low-budget, trashy, apocalyptic stuff. I like Troma for the over-the-top gore and laughs, and this was lacking in those areas. A raving mad cannibal provided a few chuckles, but that was about it.

I got the impression the directors were intending for this to be much more disturbing than it actually was. They did succeed in one cringe-inducing scene, making me feel uncomfortable to the point of skipping ahead to the end of the scene.

The screenplay and some of the acting was one positive aspect of the film. What dialog I could make out seemed particularly realistic and strikingly out of the low-budget league. In particular, the teenage boys drinking and discussing their discovery of "dumpster baby" was fairly well-acted.

The best part of the DVD is the trailer for Poultrygeist. That movie looks fantastic.

had I not paid for it, the DVD might go in the dumpster with the baby...

[FieCrier · 3/10 · 28 April 2006]

Recently watched the DVD Troma released of this movie. It wasn't at all what I thought it would be: something more like Sewage Baby. It's more like Twenty Bucks, except with a baby instead of a twenty dollar bill.

The sound quality is unfortunately pretty bad. A lot of the dialog is missed, and without it, there's not much to follow.

A woman is shot at and climbs some stairs. How she relates to the rest of the movie isn't clear. Two women do some crack; the fat one announces she's having a baby. The other one helps deliver with the use of a chef's knife. Somehow she delivers without ever taking her shorts off. The baby is dumped in a dumpster after an altercation with a gang. A guy in a bar discovers it after a hooker starts blowing him in the alley. A pimp shoots him, and he and the baby are dumped into a cab.

Somehow the baby keeps winding up with other people, but it's not always clear how it gets from place to place. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, or I missed something in the dialog. There's also a pale man in black who wanders through some of the scenes; he's reminiscent of the Thorn characters from the Halloween series to some extent. He seems to be supernatural, although he kills people in conventional ways.

There is some nudity in the movie, for those looking for that. Not a whole lot of blood, but some. It plays more like a drama than a horror movie, despite the deaths and weird figure in black.

I listened to some of the commentary track at the beginning and end of the movie to see if it shed any light on the story or what they were aiming for with the movie. They didn't touch on that in what I listed to at all, unfortunately. It wasn't interesting enough for me to listen to the rest.

The DVD has a number of trailers on it; Poultrygeist looks like it will be fun. There's also a music video for a Russian band's song "Wild Man" in which Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman stars as a blind man stumbling through a bar in which the band is playing. The Toxic Avenger shows up a couple times, and there's a sex scene and a shooting spree, so it's fairly Tromatic. The music is fairly catchy, and at least some of the lyrics are in English, like the chorus "Wild man in big city, wild man empty heart."

Decent Concept-Poor Execution...

[EVOL666 · 5/10 · 10 February 2010]

I-like many of the other reviewers-got something totally different than what I was expecting out of DUMPSTER BABY. Based on the box-art (which is exceedingly misleading because you never actually see the baby in this film until the very end) I figured we'd have some sort of mutated-fetus-on-a-rampage type film, a la THE SUCKLING. What I got instead was a little more interesting in terms of concept-too bad it's handled rather ineptly.

Long-and-short...a crackhead has a baby and doesn't want her boyfriend to find out cuz it's not his-so she leaves the baby in a dumpster. From this point forward-the baby (or more accurately-the balled-up blanket...) gets passed around from person to person and situation to situation amongst a string of degenerates...

Not a bad concept (although I would've preferred a mutated baby rampage myself...just not enough of those films to go around...), but the obviously $6 budget, mostly crap acting, and general ineptitude of the film-makers drag down what could otherwise have been a decent film. I also agree with other reviewers who complain about the audio. Most of the outdoor scenes sound as if they were filmed in a wind-tunnel,the rest of the scenes just suffer from either poor mic placement or poor audio mixing. Not a terrible film-and again-the premise is novel enough...just not enough to make DUMPSTER BABY noteworthy by any standards. Oh yeah-and there's a couple decent sets of tits, a quick flash of full-frontal, and a semi-sleazy rape scene that bumped it up a point for me. The last scene is kinda decent too. 5/10

Pease, don't watch this

[seppukumaru · 1/10 · 28 January 2010]

OK, so all the reviews that rate this movie anywhere above 5 stars are lying to you. The only reason they rated this film so high is because they want to try to get you to watch it so you can have the same horrible feeling hey did. My friend and I saw this on the Netflix instant que list and were expecting a horror movie with terrible production values, which can be pretty fun. We were expecting some kind of horrible dumpster baby monster terrorizing people and corn syrup blood, etc. etc. What we got was the worst attempt at a serious film ever, and not in a good way. This film, no exaggeration, made me want to kill myself. I felt genuinely horrible after watching it. So don't be fooled by the high praises this movie gets from other people, they just want to drag you down with them.

Huh?

[Edwinjhill · 1/10 · 31 August 2009]

I will never understand how this movie got on Netflix. It's barely good enough to be on you tube. I was expecting a dumpster baby crawling around seeking revenge but instead a bundle of blankets (Seriously Dumpster Baby director, couldn't even put a baby doll in the blanket?) is passed around to drunks, a cannibal, a catholic school girl, crack whores and a retarded garbage man. Believe me, sounds a lot funnier than it is. It also sounds a lot more comprehensible. I think that's what the movie is about, because you can only hear half the dialog. The plot is thus, somebody finds Dumpster Baby and instead of saying, "Hey, we should take this to a hospital or a police station or something." Said person takes responsibility for dumpster baby. "Hey we found a baby, let's put him in a box, then two people will have sex and guys with guns will come for some reason and then the baby ends up in a Styrofoam cooler...How did it end up there? I dunno. We made a movie called Dumpster Baby, shot in our backyard and forgot to rent microphones. You expect us to have all the answers? Oh, I forgot about the creepy guy who walks around, I think it was dumpster baby in the future but instead of trying to figure that out I'd rather stick my junk in a lobster tank.

Wow ..

[ashleighstaunton · 1/10 · 21 June 2012]

It is clear that you must be a certain type of person with a certain mind set to watch this film and feel you have not wasted 80 minutes of your life. The film itself, when compared to the illustrations on the box/cover is a complete let down. Though it may have been a low-budget film with very inexperienced actors and actresses; more could have been done. The story line was uninteresting and the ending was rubbish. There is no actual baby in the film - just a wrapped up blanket - and those who are meant to keep the story together would have been better off not in it at all.

This film does not deserve to be under the heading 'Horror'. It is completely rubbish. Do not waste your time.

Seriously bad

[inkubus · 1/10 · 11 September 2007]

I rented this movie because I'm all about independent films *and* bad films. But this one was beyond bad. The only horrors were the lack of plot, coherence, the lighting, the editing and the impossibly terrible sound.

I even attempted watching some of it with commentary to see if I could figure out what I was missing... If maybe there was something redeeming about this film but, sadly, the commentary was just as inane as the rest of it.

While in the liner it was called a grindhouse film in the tradition of the Toxic Avenger do not be fooled by it.

Drivel

[eviljd2002 · 1/10 · 5 August 2006]

This movie, which was made by Troma Entertainment, which is only partly known for a movie they have done twenty years ago, Toxic Avenger, (which is still Troma's mascot, more then likely because it was the only movie that has made them any money)-is the most awful movie I have ever seen. Dumpster Baby is like watching the subjects dealt with in Jerry Springer in real life for 2 hours.

This film deals with subjects such as, videotaping a raping, suicide after being videotaped while being raped, murder, suicide after a murder of an innocent, crack-prostitutes, pimps, and it also deals with a mysterious man in black who just comes around to kill people involved in the baby's life out of nowhere. This is just what you'd expect from this film's beginning which had an intro where a French-man states "Maybe if you Americans didn't fart so much you wouldn't have hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans." .

The sound quality of this film is horrible as well; I would feel upset about not catching certain spoken words because the quality is that bad, but I'm not upset because nothing spoken carries the plot at all, mostly because the plot is "hand the baby off to the most irresponsible person ever". One scene involved a retarded man, after having acquired the baby, sticking the child inside a drawer so that he could answer the door. When he does answer the door two kids basically bully him and tell him that they are going to call the F.B.I., as they are telling him this they are seriously playing toss the baby to each-other. There are far too many scenes that I could reference that are equally if not more, horrible, so I won't but you get the point.

The plot is ridiculous. The acting is worse then an elementary play. Sound and video quality is by far worse then Charlie Chaplin movies. Characterization of the film is extremely shallow. This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen and I don't mean that in an exaggerated "THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE I'VE SEEN!!!!111! , LOL." kind of way. This seriously is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Riveting, ruthless, and intense horror.

[artimus-3 · 10/10 · 21 December 2003]

This glorious, surreal fable is a riotous feast of provoking imagery, spectacularly dysfunctional relationships, and existential concerns, but don't let that stop you. It's also quite linear and coherent for such a film. It's about innocence, faith, love, forgiveness, and redemption. Quite successful in it's execution. It's only flaws are an inexperienced cast, and violence (except for a chilling rape sequence) that is never quite pushed far enough. That said, this is a promising new direction for the modern horror film. Worth a look.

An oddity for Troma

[The_Void · 6/10 · 11 October 2006]

Troma are best known for their cheap and nasty little horror flicks, and despite many proclaiming that this film is a cut above a lot of Troma's stuff, it's still not really that good. The idea is a good one, however, and I dare say that the film would have been great if it had been gifted with better handling. The film takes place in a very sleazy city, and the main plot follows a baby wrapped up in a blanket. It's the offspring of a crack whore, who decided to throw the child in the bin so that her boyfriend, whom she hasn't has sex with for two years, doesn't find out about it. We then watch as the unfortunate kid is passed from pillar to post! The film remains interesting at all times because of the way that the plot constantly changes. The kid is with one set of people one minute, and then with someone else the next; so we've always got a fresh mini-plot to deal with. The fact that the city in which the film is set is completely sleazy is a bonus, and directors James Bickert and Randy Hill make good use of their central location; as it really is believable that someone living there would dump their baby in the trash.

As you might expect, the acting is terrible and it didn't come as a surprise to me that most of the 'stars' didn't make another film after their debut in this one. The way that the plot changes is good, but none of the segments in the film are really that interesting in their own right and so it's not necessarily an advantage that the film changes often. There's not a great deal in the way of horror in the film for most of the running time, and it plays out something like a crime drama with various people being killed. The baby isn't really all that important to the plot for most of the film, as it exists merely as an excuse for the audience to get an insight into the various people living in this city, and we don't even get to see it for most of the film. It has to be said that the ending is rather predictable, but it's also very disgusting and provides a decent climax to a trash flick such as this one. Overall, I can't say that this film is anything like a classic; but despite its shortcomings, it's not actually that bad and even though I'm not Troma's biggest fan - I will recommend this film to those who are, as it's likely to be better than a lot of the Troma films you have seen.

Good low budget fare.

[bob-920 · 10/10 · 24 August 2003]

An existential masterpiece that transforms it's low budget. Very skillfully crafted an executed, this film will have the viewer guessing from the first frame. Caught this one in NYC at a film festival, and it stuck. Very bleak, not a likeable person in it, but it never leaves your mind. a haunting and poetic film. Don't be fooled by the goofy title, this film is very artistic and (I'm guessing here) personal. This movie is the reason why you should seek out indie film, and support it. A diamond in the rough. Highly recommended!

Damn Good Film!

[sketchy-3 · 10/10 · 24 August 2003]

I saw this at the Atlanta Film Festival, and have been trying to find it ever since. A daring, darkly disturbing low budget wonder that plays like a Bunuel film crossed with 70's grindhouse horror. The production is cheap, and the acting is low-brow, but this film gets under your skin in a way that is absent from 99.9% of the films that have been made since the Easy Rider era of American Cinema. It's very cleverfully calculated in an almost evil way that walks a line on the whole abortion issue without taking a side. Or does it. If it does, I can't figure it out. Basically a baby is born to a strange chemical smoking woman who discards it into a dumpster. Then we follow the path of this thing, and a strange evil figure stalking it, until we reach a climax that is so damn disturbing it WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU! A very nihillistic mean spirited piece that is entertaining?!? I still have nightmares about this film, and need to find it! If you like David Lynch's Eraserhead....this is even better!

Surprisingly Great!

[smells · 9/10 · 18 September 2003]

I agree, this is an effective little film. My only complaint is how mean spirited it is. Very dark and ugly but entertaing. Which makes it even more disturbing. It feels like you are watching art created by a serial killer genius. Why Troma is involved in this puzzles me. This a GOOD film.I don't associate anything good with Troma. Next thing you know Criterion will be releasing Hot Dog The Movie.

Brilliantly uncomfortable.

[Ton_O · 9/10 · 5 September 2006]

Brilliantly uncomfortable.

An unwanted baby that is disposed of by placing it in a dumpster is a superb metaphor for the kind of world most kids are born into these days. As we follow the baby through various circumstances as it goes from hand to hand, we see more and more of this dumpster of a world we live in. This film is dark, depressing and uses a palette that beautifully illustrates it's story and message. It is made on a low budget, but Dumpster Baby is one of those movies that show that not only no unlimited amount of money is needed to make a great film, but that the lack of it actually adds to the gritty atmosphere it wants to capture (a message maestro Mario Bava already understood perfectly, often handing films in under budget, because not all of the cash was needed to make a fine product). No CGI-effects could ever recreate this kind of realism. I have read about the bad sound the film is supposed to have. OK, admitted, it is not quite 5-channel ultra-Dolby mix that we get here, but as with the murky atmosphere that the cameras captured so magnificently, the sometimes hard to follow mumblings the people speak to each other add a fitting non-communicational loneliness to the lives of those we follow. Highly original, extremely hard-hitting and rather uncomfortable. In other words: a poetic masterpiece, a must-see and a must-have.

Love It!

[felicia-11 · 10/10 · 26 August 2003]

Creepy! If you like strange films like Mulholland Drive and Vanilla Sky, you'll love this one. Builds a real nice sense of suspense, and kept me glued to the screen. I actually had to watch this several times, and kept noticing more and more how tightly things started to fit into place. May not be for everyone, but if you like trippy dream stuff you won't go wrong with this video.