Baby Invasion

It is a technology demonstration, except the artist has zero proficiency in the technology they are attempting to showcase.

Baby Invasion is full frame of overlays and filters. Visual effects using artificial intelligence, video game engines, infrared depth and motion sensing, and datamoshing to name a few. Though the filmmaker seems satisfied with merely achieving the effect with little care for the end result.

It does have a very small amount of interesting naïve art. Though not always, you'll know when it's being displayed because they were smart enough to remove the simulated livestream chatroom overlay that otherwise takes up half of the frame throughout the 79 minute runtime.

I did enjoy the soundtrack which I felt accompanied the imagery well. The original score by Burial really carries the film, allowing it a chance that anyone would ever view it to the end.

This experiment of what constitutes film in a world of low attention spans and using multiple screens at the same time barrages the viewer with information and brainrot. A commentary on kids' access to violent media and how that affects their behavior, Baby Invasion is one of a kind, but not for long, as Korine predicts.

Harmony Korine, the filmmaker behind the scenes, has recently turned to experimental film and questions what will come of the film industry after cinema. He wonders if soon people won't be willing to sit for 90 minutes in a theater to watch a film. AGGRO DR1FT, his first dissection of this new 'post-cinema' movement likened this film in its equally unconventional format, being filmed entirely in thermal vision.

It is completely understandable why most people disliked the film, but innovation like this is crucial in an era of sequels, spinoffs, and the overall hypermonetization of film. The art form is becoming less of an art form and more just a vessel to harvest money. However, as opposed to fighting back against that system, Korine feeds into it and molds it into his own expression. Not everyone will like this film, but it's not made for everyone.

Harmony Korine's "Baby Invasion" isn't a movie. It's an 80-minute psychological torture, a fever-dream fusion of screen life, video games, red rooms, and home invasion.

If "Spring Breakers" was a neon-lit crime fantasy and "Trash Humpers" a found-footage provocation, this latest effort is something else entirely - a disorienting, aggressively experimental trip that dares to ask: what happens when we stop distinguishing between reality and the digital abyss?

Korine has shed his raw '90s aesthetic, embracing a hyper-stylized, tech-driven approach (something he previously explored in "Aggro Dr1ft") that will likely alienate longtime fans. But art is experiment, and experiment he does.

Shot using real-time rendering technology and ultra-fast graphics cards, "Baby Invasion" distorts and manipulates its own images as they're captured, making it feel more like a glitched-out video game stream than traditional cinema.

First-person footage of mansion break-ins, AI-generated face-swaps that turn criminals into devilish Gerber babies, and a mid-movie dance party set to Burial's pulsating score - this is not storytelling in any conventional sense. It's a chaotic, fractured reflection of a world where attention spans are shredded, and moral boundaries blur with every refresh.

At its core, "Baby Invasion" functions as a warped commentary on gaming culture's descent into nihilism. The "film" plays like a livestream of a dark web game - Baby Invaders - where players commit simulated home invasions for digital clout, their identities masked by AI-rendered baby faces.

A fake chat overlay runs throughout, echoing the desensitized reactions of internet spectators. There's an eerie implication that the technology at play is more than just a game - that either the players have lost themselves in their violent avatars, or worse, that something (or someone) is using the game to manipulate them into real-world crimes.

It's "Straw Dogs" on steroids, only now the siege is broadcast for an audience that barely registers its horror.

While "Baby Invasion" thrives on tension and unpredictability, its relentless chaos and refusal to offer a clear message make it a tough watch. Some scenes drag on too long, others cut away too fast. But the film's true horror isn't in the acts of simulated violence - it's in how much fun the players seem to have.

No one questions the morality of what they're doing. No one fights back. The only concern is racking up points. Or so, we think!

Watching "Baby Invasion" isn't just disorienting - it's nauseating, hypnotic, and terrifying all at once. This isn't cinema as we know it, but an immersive descent into the darker corners of the web, where reality and simulation merge into something unrecognizable.

Harmony Korine doesn't ask if this future is coming - he suggests it's already here, and we've been playing along without even realizing it.

Doubling down on everything irritating found in AGGRO DR1FT, Baby Invasion soon becomes numbingly repetitive and could only have come from the clinically insane mind of Harmony Korine. Despite all the creative ideas and its attempt to further push the boundaries with his recent affiliations towards his EDGLRD aesthetic, the film ultimately settles for infantilised drivel, horrific sound design, nausea-inducing visuals and generative AI monstrosities. Lacking any form of cinematic style, Baby Invasion may attempt to simulate a video game but it fails to include the elements that have made gaming such a unique art form; be it a compelling narrative or even a satisfying gameplay loop. It's one thing to play a video game... but sitting down and watching one, especially as bad as this, is frankly quite boring. It's clear that Korine wants nothing to do with conventional cinema anymore, thriving on mere gimmicks, he thinks he's cracked the code on what comes next, but I sincerely hope he's miserably wrong.

It's surprising from the director of Spring Breakers to make something so different, but it's bursting with flaws despite all the creative ideas, it seems the director knew this but said 'Make it anyway!'

While the core concept and some individual sequences are enjoyable, the pacing suffers significantly from this unnecessary elongation the runtime is padded with excessively long, lingering shots that are boring, serve no narrative purpose and feel like filler just to make the footage movie length.

Or scenes that pause to flaunt their lavish effects where the movie wants to use effects just to use them.

Drags on but has a fun premise and execution overall.