Babybacks — The Low-Budget Knockout Nobody Asked For (And We All Deserved)

Low-budget cinema has one unwritten rule: if you’re going to fuck it up, do it with style. Geno Marx, a name that sounds like a pseudonym invented in a roadside bar after three cheap whiskies, seems to have forgotten this sacred commandment. Babybacks isn’t a movie—it’s a failed found footage experiment where someone documented the process of how NOT to make a feature film. Ninety-four minutes of raw meat, broken bones, and a script that reeks of airport buffet leftovers. If cinema were boxing, this would be a walkover by forfeit before the opponent even steps into the ring. But here, there is no opponent—just a director flagellating himself with a $200 camera and a cast that seems to have signed the contract in blood... literally, because the special effects makeup looks like it was lifted from a 2012 YouTube tutorial.

Marx, whose prior résumé is as opaque as this film’s future, delivers a product that oscillates between low-budget torture porn and an unintentional mockumentary. Babybacks has no official synopsis, and it’s no coincidence: how do you summarize something even its creators didn’t understand? It’s like trying to describe a car crash where everyone involved was drunk, including the cameraman. The premise, if it exists, seems inspired by those fever dreams you have after eating three cheeseburgers at 3 AM. There’s meat, there’s pain, there are characters entering and exiting the frame as if fleeing a fire... but nobody knows why. If Troma and The Asylum had a bastard child and raised it in a slaughterhouse, the result would look something like this.

The problem isn’t that Babybacks is bad—cinema is full of bad movies that are glorious in their misery—the problem is that it’s boringly bad. There’s not enough madness to justify its existence, not even that trash charm that turns films like The Room or Birdemic into cult objects. Here, there are no memorable lines ("Oh hi, Mark"), no iconic scenes (the spoon toss), not even a plot twist that makes you spit out your soda in laughter. It’s a desert of ideas, a wasteland of technical mediocrity where the only thing that stands out is the lack of ambition. Marx directs as if he’s filming a TikTok video blindfolded: shots that drag on too long, dialogue that sounds like Google Translate outputs, and a rhythm that alternates between funeral slow motion and the fast forward of someone who just wants this to end already.

And then there’s the cast, that group of brave (or desperate) souls who decided to risk their dignity in this shipwreck. Viridiana Márquez is the only one who seems aware she’s in a movie, though her performance wavers between telenovela drama and method acting from someone who genuinely believes they’re being stalked by a pig-masked killer. The rest of the ensemble—Ryan Rathbun, Ray Acevedo, Alfredo González—move as if they were told this was an improv workshop, not a horror film. AB Phoenix, meanwhile, wears the facial expression of someone who just found out their contract doesn’t include catering. Together, they form a Greek chorus of disorientation, reciting lines that sound like they were scribbled on a bar napkin between shots of cheap tequila.

Direction: The Art of Tripping Over the Camera

If Geno Marx had directed The Godfather, Don Corleone would’ve ended up selling insurance in New Jersey, and Michael would’ve become a fitness influencer. The direction in Babybacks is so chaotic it looks like it was filmed during an earthquake—without the earthquake as an excuse. Marx alternates between endless long takes—as if waiting for something interesting to happen, in vain—and abrupt cuts that seem like editing errors. There’s a scene where a character runs toward the camera for what feels like five minutes, and you can’t help but wonder: Why don’t you cut, Geno? Do you think the suspense builds if we watch this poor bastard gasp like a dog in August?

The mise-en-scène is a festival of questionable decisions. Marx seems obsessed with close-ups of rotten food, as if he’s making a documentary about food decomposition rather than a horror film. The framing is so predictable you could guess the next shot with your eyes closed: character looks off-screen → cut to sinister object → character screams. If cinema were chess, Marx would be playing without a queen, without rooks, and with a pawn moving in circles.

Marx’s greatest crime, however, is his inability to generate tension. In a horror movie, suspense is bread and butter, but here it’s like someone forgot to add yeast. The jump scare scenes are so predictable you could time them with an hourglass. Oh, look, a dark shot! Something’s bound to pop out of nowhere now... BAM! A cat. Brilliant, Geno. A cat. Is that the best you’ve got?

Performances: The Cast That Deserved Better (Or at Least a Script)

If the performances in Babybacks were a boxing match, the referee would’ve stopped the fight in the first round for mercy rule. Viridiana Márquez is the only one who seems to grasp that this is a movie, not a group therapy session, but even she has moments where her look of disbelief seems to say, "Are we seriously doing this?" The rest of the cast moves as if they were handed the script five minutes before shooting and told, "Improvise, but not too much."

Ryan Rathbun plays his character like he’s in an SNL sketch directed by someone who’s never seen SNL. His dialogue sounds like lines written by an AI trained on 80s movie scripts. "We can’t escape this! It’s like fate has chained us together with meat!"—yes, someone wrote that, and someone else said it on camera without laughing. Ray Acevedo, meanwhile, has the expressiveness of a Zara mannequin, but with less charisma. When he tries to convey fear, he looks like he’s suffering from constipation.

And then there’s AB Phoenix, whose name sounds like a Mexican wrestler’s pseudonym but whose performance is more reminiscent of a The Walking Dead extra than a protagonist. His character spends most of the movie staring into the void as if waiting for someone to give him directions. When he finally opens his mouth, you wish he’d kept it shut. His lines are so forced they seem lifted from a "How to Write Dialogue for Dummies" manual written by a dummy.

Technical Department: Where Low-Budget Sticks Out Like an Elephant in a Pool

If Babybacks’ budget were a person, they’d be begging for change outside a McDonald’s. The cinematography by Frank Buono is so flat it looks like it was shot on a 2015 iPhone and edited in Windows Movie Maker. The colors are so desaturated you wonder if the film was shot in a post-apocalyptic world where the sun has stopped shining. Night shots are so dark they seem filmed inside a closet, and interiors have the lighting of a gas station at 3 AM.

The special effects makeup is another black mark. When the killer—or whatever’s chasing the characters—appears on screen, it looks like it was pulled from a 10-year-old’s Halloween cosplay. The blood looks like diluted ketchup, and the wounds like Play-Doh. There’s a scene where a character is stabbed, and the wound looks more like a WhatsApp sticker than a practical effect. If this were an 80s movie, it might at least have kitsch charm. But in 2026, it’s just sad.

The score is another disaster. Composed of what sounds like a loop of royalty-free YouTube sounds, it alternates between elevator music and horror stings that sound like they were written by someone who just discovered what a synthesizer is. There’s a scene where the music swells as if trying to compensate for the lack of tension in the plot, but it only ends up sounding like an annoying ringtone.

The editing is, possibly, the only technical aspect that isn’t an absolute disaster... because it’s so basic it’s hard to fuck up. The cuts are clean, but that’s like saying a car with no wheels has a nice paint job. Babybacks has no rhythm, no flow, and no idea how to keep the viewer’s interest. It’s like watching a tennis match where the ball never crosses the net.

The best

Viridiana Márquez’s bravery: The only one who seems to remember she’s in a movie, not a survival reality show*. Her look of disbelief is the most authentic thing in the entire film.
The title: At least it’s honest. Babybacks* sounds like something they’d serve at a roadside diner after the health inspector went home.

• The runtime: 94 minutes that feel like three hours, but at least it doesn’t reach two hours of suffering. Small victories.

The unintentional found footage: Watching the actors improvise dialogue is so painful it almost becomes performance art.

The worst

The script: Written with feet, edited with eyes closed, and recited like the actors are reading an IKEA* instruction manual.

• Geno Marx’s direction: If cinema were boxing, Marx would be the guy who trips over his own feet before stepping into the ring.

The special effects: The blood looks like ketchup, the wounds like Play-Doh*, and the killer like a 2012 Halloween cosplay.
The pacing: Alternates between funeral slow motion and the fast forward* of someone who just wants this to end. No middle ground.
The score: Composed of what sounds like a loop of royalty-free YouTube* sounds. Sounds like elevator music directed by someone who’s deaf.
The cast (except Márquez): An ensemble plucked from a WhatsApp casting call where the only requirement was "knowing how to breathe."*

The Verdict of Claqueta Ácida

Babybacks isn’t a movie—it’s a crime scene. A gore-laden disaster with more fat than script, more rotten meat than tension, and more questionable decisions than an episode of Big Brother. Geno Marx delivers a product that oscillates between low-budget torture porn and an unintentional mockumentary, but without the charm of either. It’s not bad enough to be good, nor good enough to be bad. It’s simply a technical KO of low-budget cinema, a walkover of mediocrity where the only winner is the viewer who turns it off after twenty minutes. Final score: 3.2/10. If hell had a cinema section, this film would be the trailer of what’s to come. 💀