The Baby (1973) Scotia International/Horror RT: 84 minutes Rated PG (violence, language, suggestive content) Director: Ted Post Screenplay: Abe Polsky Music: Gerald Fried Cinematography: Michael D. Margulies Release date: March 1973 (US) Cast: Anjanette Comer, Ruth Roman, Marianna Hill, Suzanne Zenor, Michael Pataki, Beatrice Manley Blau, David Mooney (credited as David Manzy). Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
If you thought the murderous clans in The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were nuts, wait till you get a load of the freaky family in The Baby. They don’t brandish power tools, practice cannibalism or rape and kill unsuspecting teenage girls. They’ve got something different going on in their house and it is truly f***ed up! I’m still weirded out by it.
I never even heard of The Baby until a few years ago when I saw the trailer in the documentary Celluloid Bloodbath: More Prevues from Hell (it’s cool, you should check it out). I knew it was something that I had to see so I purchased a copy from Amazon with the intention of viewing it immediately. Sadly, life got in the way and I didn’t get around to watching it until this past week. Within minutes, I became convinced that The Baby was conceived by inmates of an insane asylum. Only a truly disturbed individual or individuals could come up with something this demented.
Social worker Ann Gentry (Comer, The Night of a Thousand Cats) pays her first visit to her new clients, the Wadsworth family. For reasons that will NOT be revealed here, she has a special interest in their case; specifically, the youngest family member simply known as Baby (Manzy) only he’s no baby. He’s actually a fully-grown man being kept in an infantile state through abuse and punishment by his mother (Roman, Strangers on a Train) and two abusive older sisters, Germaine (Hill, High Plains Drifter) and Alba (Zenor, Days of Our Lives). Ann wants to help Baby; she believes that he’s capable of advancing beyond his current state. Mom thinks otherwise and the sisters resent her intrusion of their privacy.
There are a couple of certainties here. One, Ann will continue to press the issue with her supervisor and state child protection agencies. Two, the Wadsworths will try/do something crazy in order to shut her up permanently. At this point, I don’t want to say anything more about The Baby other than to suggest that Ann’s motives might not be as altruistic as she claims. That is all.
Seeing a grown man act like a baby can either be funny or disturbing. An example of the former is Larry the Cable Guy on TV’s Blue Collar Comedy (“I made brown!”). An example of the latter is The Baby. It’s made so by Manzy’s believable performance as a severely developmentally disabled man who doesn’t walk, talk or feed himself. His crazy family has made him completely dependent on them to take care of his needs. When he shows signs of development (e.g. standing up), he’s punished with an electric cattle prod or locked in a closet. It’s no wonder this family doesn’t welcome outsiders.
I know I ought not to analyze schlocky horror movies like The Baby, but I have a question that’s been gnawing at my mind since I watched it. How is it that nobody is outraged by this insane domestic situation? Ann’s boss has to know what going on in that house. Surely previous case workers submitted reports of the adult-sized baby who sleeps in a big crib and plays in a playpen in the backyard. I would also imagine they’d report possible abuse which would bring about an investigation. Everybody, even extended family members, acts like the Baby situation is completely normal. To be fair, the relatives don’t appear to be playing a full deck either. Observe the behavior of Michael Pataki’s (Graduation Day) character at Baby’s birthday party. In any event, this one of those things that you just have to accept, no questions asked.
Roman is creepy as hell as a mother who could very well be related to Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. She camps it up so much, it’s like she’s trying out for a remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Hill and Zenor are sufficiently vicious as the evil sisters who carry out their mother’s bidding lest they be punished themselves. Comer is good as Ann, a seemingly sweet woman who’s anything but a victim. There’s really not a whole hell of a lot to say about the acting here. It’s a campy movie with campy performances. Need I say more?
I wouldn’t dream of revealing the big twist at the end of The Baby, but I will say that it makes perfect sense in hindsight. Little clues are dropped throughout. I actually should have seen it coming. That’s all I’ll say about that.
As I sit here writing about The Baby, I’m thinking about the lack of originality in today’s horror movies. In 2019, a majority of scary movies are sequels, remakes and watered-down PG-13 movies aimed at kids. Right now, my local multiplex is showing Child’s Play and Annabelle Comes Home. As much as I enjoyed them, they lack a sense of bravery. These are safe choices on the part of the studios. They will make money. No major studio today would gamble on something as bizarre as The Baby as it’s not likely to attract mass audiences. That’s what I like about 70s horror movies, particularly the B-level ones. The makers weren’t afraid to go all out and deliver something that would shock and repel audiences rather than entertain them. Director Ted Post (Magnum Force), working from a screenplay by Abe Polsky (Brute Corps), has more on his mind than cheap scares that fade within seconds. He effectively gets under the collective skin of the audience by giving them a total creep-out horror movie. In short, The Baby is good stuff!
One final question, what kind of financial deal did he strike with the aforementioned asylum residents? I hope they’re still receiving royalties.
