Marsh’s Dead Babies, Mood Swingers in the U.S., is a satire of a picnic disaster. If this satire is meant to be crude, it succeeds admirably. If satire aims to amuse, Dead Babies fails miserably. Ditto Martin Amis’s novel on which the film is based.
The picnic begins pleasantly upbeat and then spirals downward. Fueled by drugs and alcohol, Marsh’s picnickers, a disgruntled group of twenty-somethings becoming progressively deranged.
Before entering a meadow, the picnickers are momentarily stopped by a sign reading, “Fuck off/Trespassers Will /Be Prosecuted.” Disregarding the warning, Quentin rips the sign off the fence post. Undeterred, they climb through the barbed-wire fence, and ignoring the cattle beyond them, they spread a blanket. Unloading suitcases of drugs, wines, and whiskey, the picnic begins. It’s a heady menu.
The conversation is dizzy. If it’s distasteful, this group will discuss it. The group revels in body parts and sex. For instance, there is the lurid tale about Keith, whose father raped him and killed his mother. The women take off their clothes and compare breasts. Remarkably, the men their pants ons, except for the guy crapping in the bushes. 
The picnickers madly scramble when a cow ambles over. Safely behind the fence, Skip stupidly smashes the heifer’s head with a brick, “Motherfuck, motherfuck,” he says when the cow falls over dead. Undeterred and ready to go on, Keith says, “Let’s get drunk.”
Marsh does not care about food. But in his novel, Amis’s picnickers bring beef steak sandwiches, sardines, liver sausage, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, crispbread with smoked salmon, salad, celery, radishes, cheese, apples, bananas, biscuits, six bottles each of Pouilly Fuissé, Saint Emilion, and Chateau Neuf de Pape, one Glenfiddich, one Gordon’s Gin, and one Napoleon Brandy.
The cast: Paul Bettany as Quentin; Olivia Williams as Diana; Katy Carmichael as Lucy Littlejohn; Alexandra Gilbreath as Hayley Carr as Roxanne; Andy Nyman as Keith: Kris Marshall as Skip
See William Marsh. Mood Swingers (2001), aka Dead Babies (2000). The screenplay by William Marsh is based on Martin Amis’ Dead Babies; Martin Amis. Dead Babies. New York: Vintage International, 1975