If writer-directors Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant had put more effort into their new film Hell Baby, they could have had one of the best parodies of recent horror movies.  The film has some huge laughs as well as some insight into the genre’s weaknesses, but Lennon and Garant’s sketch comedy roots wreck the picture in the worst way.  They’re content to let their scenes run on way too long, they have no idea how to tie their scenes together, and the result feels like we’re in the middle of something that’s being workshopped rather than a finished feature.  Despite a memorable performance from Keegan Michael Key, Hell Baby feels like a gigantic waste of potential that keeps us interested because we’re waiting for the next great joke.

Ever since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, zombies have become synonymous with lifeless, dead-eyed beings, a void – existential nothingness in its simplest form. Zombies, as characterized, exhibit no human emotion, feeling, remembrance – and it’s been that way through Dawn of the Dead (1978) to Dawn of the Dead (2004) to The Walking Dead (2013). This Friday’s release Warm Bodies attempts to redefine the zombie not as death incarnate but merely as a lost and lonely soul… Sure the zombies still want to eat human brains but it has less to do with hunger than a need to connect. It should come as no surprise that the cure for all that brain munching, lethargic walking and indecipherable growling – as posed in Warm Bodies – is quite simple: love.

Comedian Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine) co-stars in the picture as the zombie ‘M’, best friend to lead and fellow zombie ‘R’ (Nick Hoult). When ‘R’ falls in love with the human Julie and suddenly begins to come back to life, it sparks ‘M’ on a similar mission to reconnect/regenerate. In the following interview with Corddry, he discusses imbuing the undead with personality, improving on set and his role in the upcoming film Hell Baby. For the full interview, hit the jump.

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival is in the midst of unveiling its lineups, and today we’ve got the first images from some films that will be playing as part of the Park City at Midnight program.  Briefly:

• Ass Backwards – Directed by Chris Nelson, written by June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson, starring Raphael, Wilson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alicia Silverstone, Jon Cryer, and Brian Geraghty.
• Hell Baby – Written and directed by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, starring Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Keegan Michael Key, Riki Lindhome, Paul Scheer, and Rob Huebel.
• In Fear – Directed and story by Jeremy Lovering, starring Alice Englert, Iain De Caestecker, and Allen Leech.
• kink – Directed by Christina Voros.

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 17 – 27.

Yesterday the 2013 Sundance Film Festival announced the lineup for films competing in the Dramatic and Documentary categories, and today they’ve unveiled the films that will screen in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, and New Frontier programs.  Films of note include Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols’ new film Mud starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon, the U.S. premiere of Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, the Robert Ben Garant/Thomas Lennon comedy Hell Baby, and the horror anthology sequel S-VHS.

Hit the jump to see the full lineup, and click here to check out all of our Sundance coverage thus far.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27.

Reno 911! stars and non-stop screenwriters Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant are set to make their co-directorial debut on the horror comedy Hell Baby, and they’ve found their two leads. Darko Entertainment announced today that Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb (Talladega Nights) have signed on to star in the comedy that centers on a young expectant couple who moves in to New Orleans most haunted fixer-upper and calls upon The Vatican’s elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby. Lennon and Garant wrote the script, will co-direct, and plan to star as the Vatican’s exorcism team.

Lennon and Garant have made a nice living in recent years writing younger-skewing comedies like The Pacifier and the Night at the Museum films (they even wrote a book entitled Writing Movies for Fun and Profit). Hell Baby sounds like it has hints of Rosemary’s Baby, and for Corddry’s sake as a comedian I hope they’ve written a more adult comedy. Bibb currently stars on the ABC series GCB and Corddry recently wrapped the zombie adaptation Warm Bodies. Hit the jump to read the press release.