The internet has become a double-edged sword in so many aspects of our daily lives. As a horror movie enthusiast, it has given me the opportunity to share, discuss, and create an outlet built around the same love for the genre that was injected into me during childhood.
As fans, the internet also allows us to connect with like-minded people around the world and express our admiration for the artists who have shaped the genre we love: directors, actors, writers, and legends. But there is a darker side to the World Wide Web—one that seems increasingly dedicated to tearing down the very people who have spent years sharing their passion with us.
Artists today are not only fighting to preserve their creativity while navigating financial pressures, they are also confronting an endless army of strangers behind phones and computer screens, ready to destroy whatever crosses their path in exchange for likes, engagement, and validation. This is the culture we have created: everyone has an opinion, and everyone feels entitled to have it heard.
What we rarely consider, however, is what happens on the other side of that screen.
That is where Big Baby opens up a surprisingly necessary conversation about the emotional and psychological consequences of online criticism—and what happens when an artist begins to internalize the voices of people who have never met them.
Spider One’s film is, on the surface, an original take on the slasher genre. The masked killer is there. The imposing physical presence is there. The high body count and increasingly grotesque deaths are certainly there. But beneath all that blood and carnage is something much more personal: a filmmaker using the slasher as a form of catharsis.
Big Baby becomes a manifestation of the internal battle between creativity and self-doubt—the feeling of never being good enough, the constant comparison with others, and that relentless voice reminding you that whatever you create will never be worthy.
The film follows Adam Lewis, played by Brandon Scott, a well-established screenwriter who is struggling to feel proud of his latest work. While researching the public’s reaction to his writing, Adam stumbles upon a horror podcast brutally criticizing his work, going as far as telling him to kill himself. Thankfully, his partner Kate, played by Krsy Fox, is there to remind him that the negative voices are not the only ones that matter.
But Adam’s frustrations, anxiety, and mounting pressure begin following him into his writing process. During a nightmare, he witnesses a towering figure wearing a grotesque baby mask brutally murdering his wife while he watches helplessly. Rather than simply being traumatized by the dream, Adam sees an opportunity. The nightmare becomes the foundation for what he believes could be his next great screenplay.
The problem is that as Adam begins writing the slasher everyone expects him to make, the line between his fiction and reality starts to disappear. And suddenly, Big Baby isn’t just the killer in his screenplay. It’s becoming part of Adam’s life.
What follows puts his career, his relationship with Kate, and ultimately his sanity at risk.
If we simply judged Big Baby by its cover, it would be easy to dismiss it as another straightforward slasher designed to cash in on the genre’s current popularity. Especially when its supporting cast includes so many recognizable horror faces: Terrifier’s Catherine Corcoran and David Howard Thornton, The Green Inferno’s Kirby Bliss Blanton, Death Proof’s Tracie Thoms, and many more.
But Spider One is doing something considerably more interesting.
Big Baby becomes a critique of our current culture—not only the way we consume movies, but the way we consume almost everything. Everyone has a voice. Everyone has a platform. And everyone increasingly feels entitled to use that platform to either celebrate or destroy.
Spider One approaches that subject from a deeply personal perspective, as a filmmaker and artist who understands what it means to put your work into the world and have strangers immediately judge it. Instead of simply fighting back against the criticism, he turns it into the movie itself.
In that sense, Big Baby feels almost like Spider One’s cinematic response to the haters: a bloody, chaotic, unapologetic way of saying, f*ck them.
At the film’s emotional center is Adam’s gradual psychological breakdown. Brandon Scott captures the character’s transformation with an increasingly unsettling intensity, as Adam slowly loses himself to the Big Baby persona.
Meanwhile, Krsy Fox gives Kate a role that goes beyond simply being the supportive partner. She becomes the person forced to watch someone she loves disappear into a version of himself she can no longer reach.
Their dynamic gives the film an unexpectedly human dimension.
We see both sides of the relationship: the small moments of affection, the daily conversations, the reassurance and unconditional support—but also the terrifying helplessness of realizing that love alone may not be enough to save someone who is spiraling.
It’s an effective exploration of how external forces can infiltrate even the healthiest relationships, especially when one person’s insecurities become amplified by an endless stream of outside voices.
And, of course, Spider One knows exactly what horror fans came for: THE SLASHER.
For every moment spent inside Adam’s increasingly fractured reality, Big Baby gives us glimpses into the fictional horror movie taking shape inside his screenplay. And when that world comes alive, the film doesn’t hold back. The body count rises, the deaths become increasingly inventive and grotesque, and the Big Baby killer gets to unleash the kind of carnage genre fans are expecting.
That balance is ultimately what makes Big Baby work.
Spider One doesn’t reject the slasher formula, he embraces it while using it to talk about something much bigger. The killer becomes an embodiment of criticism. The screenplay becomes a reflection of artistic insecurity and pressure. And the violence becomes a visual representation of what happens when every negative comment, every comparison, and every voice telling you that you’re not good enough starts living inside your head.
Because perhaps the real monster in Big Baby isn’t the masked killer. It’s the voice telling you that your work—and ultimately, you—will never be enough.
In an online culture where criticism has become entertainment and outrage has become currency, Big Baby feels surprisingly timely. It reminds us that behind every movie, every piece of art, every performance, and every creative risk is a human being who has chosen to put a piece of themselves into the world.
You don’t have to love everything you see. You don’t even have to like it. But maybe, before we turn someone’s passion into a punchline, we should remember that there is a person on the other side of the screen.
And sometimes, the most powerful thing an artist can do with all that noise is turn it into art—and let the monster speak for itself.
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