LULLABY (2022)

Studio:     Vertical Entertainment
Director:    John R. Leonetti
Writer:     Alex Greenfield, Ben Powell
Producer:  Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Lee Nelson, David Tish
Stars:     Oona Chaplin, Ramon Rodriguez, Liane Balaban

Review Score:

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Summary:

A married couple inadvertently summons an ancient evil that threatens to take their newborn baby to the underworld.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Rachel and John move into a new apartment with their newborn son Eli. Supposedly sent by Rachel’s mother, the couple accepts a delivery of baby items that previously belonged to Rachel’s troubled sister Vivian, whose infant son Zachary and husband Aaron died under horrific circumstances.

Among the items, Rachel and John discover an old grimoire written in Hebrew. Recently converted to Judaism, John translates a musical passage from the book, which he identifies as a lullaby.

Six months later, Rachel and John continue to be stressed by their consistently fussy child. Having rediscovered the grimoire, Rachel sings the translated lullaby, which successfully puts Eli to sleep.

Rachel and John begin having hallucinatory encounters with an old crone and a two-headed mutant baby along with other supernatural experiences. One incident causes John to inadvertently kill his pet cockatoo.

Rachel tells John about the hag who has been haunting her. John identifies the figure from an illustration in the grimoire. Spooked by the evil association, John throws the book in the trash, but later follows the sounds of a crying baby that lead him to take back the tome.

Rachel visits her sister Vivian in a psychiatric hospital. Vivian becomes distressed when she learns their mother sent her baby’s belongings to Rachel, and Rachel subsequently sang the lullaby to Eli. Vivian claims her son Zachary didn’t actually die, but rather he was taken by the demon Lilith after Vivian sang the same cursed song.

Vivian explains that, according to apocryphal legend, Lilith was “The First Woman.” After being exiled from The Garden of Eden, Lilith went to the wilderness where she mated with wolves to birth her own race of inhuman creations. Upon seeing the naturally beautiful children Adam and Eve created, Lilith coveted them and began stealing human babies. Lilith continued her kidnappings until God finally banished her to the underworld. Lullabies were then invented to keep Lilith at bay, but she twisted one of them into becoming a summoning spell.

Meanwhile, John explains the supernatural situation to Rabbi Simowitz, who previously heard similar concerns from Rachel’s sister Vivian, whom she also had difficulty believing at the time. Rabbi Simowitz recounts the story of Lilith for John, but ultimately insists there is nothing she can do to help him.

Rachel brings Vivian back home with her. Since Lilith uses them as doorways between her underworld and reality, Vivian advises Rachel to cover all of the mirrors in the apartment to prevent Lilith from coming for Eli.

John gets summoned to bring the grimoire to Rabbi Cohen, a controversial rabbi who works outside orthodox practices. Rabbi Cohen explains that three rituals summon Lilith to steal a child. The first ritual, the lullaby, calls forth Lilith’s handmaid crone and mutant baby servants. The second involves a blood sacrifice of an unclean beast that profaned a home, which in this case equals John unintentionally killing his parrot. The final step is to spill the baby’s blood, which will cause Lilith to come for the child and leave a golem in its place. Rabbi Cohen insists on keeping the book for safety, but gives John protective candles and an incantation for repelling Lilith.

Rachel finds her sister cradling Eli, singing Lilith’s lullaby, and preparing to draw the baby’s blood with a pin. Vivian reveals she orchestrated Rachel coming into possession of the grimoire because she believes she can get her own son back by luring Lilith with Eli. Although Vivian insists they will have an opportunity to rescue both boys from the underworld when Lilith comes for Eli, Rachel attacks her sister to save her son. The two sisters struggle until Lilith ultimately comes for the baby while Vivian pulls Rachel into the underworld with her through a mirror.

John returns home to find Eli replaced with a golem in the crib. John puts Rabbi Cohen’s candles in a menorah and uses them along with the incantation to force Lilith back through the mirror.

Rachel confronts Lilith in the underworld. While Lilith uses her lullaby to subdue Vivian and choke her to death, Rachel uses the opportunity to escape with Eli. Following John’s voice as a guide through a maze of multiple portals into numerous nurseries, Rachel crashes back into reality through her mirror. Lilith attempts to crawl after her through a large shard of broken mirror glass, but Rachel and John use the incantation and candles to banish her. However, Rachel realizes Lilith switched babies and she inadvertently returned with the wrong child.

Some time later, Rabbi Cohen’s assistant Stevie secretly brings the grimoire back to John. John takes the tome to Rachel as the two of them plot to summon Lilith so they can have another opportunity to save their son.

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Review:

“New” describes several things currently going on in Rachel and John’s life as a happily married couple.  Recently converted from Christianity, John is new to Judaism.  Almost as recently, Rachel won an award that’s helping to brighten her new star on the celebrity chef scene.  Together, the two of them just moved into a new apartment.  They did that because they’re now welcoming a new addition to their little family: a bouncing baby boy named Eli.

“Old,” on the other hand, describes the ancient evil aiming to turn their home into hell.  According to apocryphal legend, Lilith preceded Eve as history’s “First Woman.”  Banished from the Garden of Eden, Lilith was said to lay with wolves to spawn a race of abominations so unholy, she envied the beautiful, natural children Adam and Eve birthed.  She coveted them so much that Lilith constantly kidnapped human babies until lullabies were created to keep her at bay.  But Lilith cursed one of these lullabies into becoming a summoning spell.  Through that song, Rachel has unknowingly invited Lilith to take her sweet son into the netherworld, unless she and her husband can find a way to rid themselves of Lilith and her supernatural sorcery first.

“Old,” unfortunately, also describes where “Lullaby” lands on the freshness scale for formulaic fright film fare.  Ever since “The Possession” (review here) released in 2012, genre entertainment has enjoyed an uptick in Jewish horror, providing a welcome pocket for terror tales that don’t have to be stitched from familiar faith-based fears involving priests, exorcisms, and the age-old conflict between God and The Devil.  Trouble is, as “Lullaby” shows, photocopied traits like haunting visions, haggard crones, and sudden hands on shoulders offer only routine spooks regardless of which religion’s mythology motivates supposed scares.  Bible or Torah.  Stole or yarmulke.  Demon or dibbuk.  No matter what the details are, a stale story remains unremarkable in the end.

“Lullaby” contains nothing inventive or imaginative.  From its small “Do I even recognize them?” slate of faceless actors to its indistinct atmosphere, “Lullaby” looks, sounds, and plays like every other in-one-ear-and-rocketing-out-the-other thriller dimly flickering in your memory.  The scent of déjà vu wafts so strongly, you might even waste several futile minutes trying to figure out if you’ve actually seen it before, should you land on the film in passing while flipping through traditional TV channels.

Capably led by veteran cinematographer and director John R. Leonetti of “Annabelle” (review here) fame, or infamy depending on personal opinion of that “The Conjuring” spinoff, plenty of seasoned professionals had a hand in producing “Lullaby.”  This means that, on a technical level at least, “Lullaby” comes across as slightly better than an average DTV’er, albeit only slightly, and only as a modestly polished production.

The apartment where a majority of the movie takes place isn’t quite as cramped as the usual white-walled interior where countless indie chillers take place.  And instead of falling back on an easy computer research sequence, John and Rachel each get out of the house to gather exposition, allowing scenery to breathe a bit before an audience can become too bored by seeing the same rooms repeated over and over again.

“Lullaby” still cheaps out when it can, especially at the end when an otherworldly nether-realm gets realized with some simple white curtains draped from the ceiling of a dark room.  This “Other Side” by way of a Charles Band budget is hardly terrifying.  Neither is the predictable plot though, so no one should expect anything more than the minimum on any level after spending a few minutes inside this middling movie anyway.

All put together, “Lullaby” presents a package of intriguing Jewish folklore on the outside, but inside the foil wrapper sits a bar of plain nougat coated in clichéd chocolate.  Even if it doesn’t taste too bad to your tongue, you’d still never think to recommend the movie to anyone.  As a matter of fact, you wouldn’t even think to mention it in response to the question, “What movies have you watched lately?”

Review Score: 35

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