''I Don't Want to Be Born'' is a 1975 British

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by Peter Sasdy and starring

Joan Collins Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Awards, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime Emm ...

, Ralph Bates,

Eileen Atkins Dame Eileen June Atkins (born 15 June 1934) is an English actress. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting ...

, and

Donald Pleasence Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He was known for his "bald head and intense, staring eyes," and played more than 250 stage, film, and television roles across a nearly sixty-year career. Pleas ...

. It was written by

Stanley Price Stanley Price (December 31, 1892July 13, 1955) was an American film supporting actor who appeared in over 200 films between 1922 and 1956. He was a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild. Career Price was an actor whose artistic career s ...

. Released in the United States under the alternate title ''The Devil Within Her'', it is also known as ''The Monster'' and ''Sharon's Baby''. A woman gives birth to a child that appears to be demonically possessed.

Plot

Lucy is working as a dancer in a sleazy strip joint. Her stage act includes a routine with a dwarf named Hercules. One night after the show, she invites Hercules into her dressing room for a drink. He starts to rub Lucy's neck and shoulders. Lucy feels uncomfortable but tries to pretend nothing is happening, until Hercules makes a sudden lunge for her breasts, causing her to scream. Stage manager Tommy rushes into the dressing room and sends Hercules on his way, then proceeds to make love to Lucy. Later as Lucy leaves the club she is confronted by the spurned and humiliated Hercules, who curses her with the words "You will have a baby ... a monster! An evil monster conceived inside your womb! As big as I am small and possessed by the devil himself!" Months pass and Lucy has left her stripping days behind, having moved up in the world via marriage to the wealthy Italian Gino Carlesi and now comfortably settled in a grand

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...

. Lucy goes into hospital to give birth to the baby she is expecting. It proves to be a protracted, dangerous and painful delivery as the baby is a hefty 12-pounder. The newborn infant is handed to Lucy, and seconds later she is sporting a slashed and bleeding cheek, “he scratched me! With his sharp nails!" she exclaims in horror to her obstetrician Dr. Finch, who calmly explains that the baby must have been alarmed at being held too tightly. Lucy and Gino bring the baby home and are welcomed by their efficient, no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs. Hyde. Things get off to a bad start when Mrs. Hyde goes to chuck the baby's chin, only to regret it. "The little devil bit me!" she says as she displays her crushed finger. She takes an instant dislike to the child, and is later rewarded with a dead mouse in her cup of tea. Lucy's attempts at maternal bonding are fraught with problems. She is visited by her friend Mandy and is voicing her concerns when they are interrupted by a series of crashes from upstairs. To their horror, they find the baby in his cot but the nursery practically demolished. Gino's sister Albana, a nun, arrives from her convent in Italy to visit her new nephew. Immediately aware that all is not well, she invites Gino to pray with her for the baby, which results in agonising screams from the nursery. Dr. Finch is consulted, and agrees to carry out a series of tests. Lucy meanwhile finds the burdens of motherhood too much to bear alone, and employs Jill Fletcher, a nurse, to look after the baby. After a near-miss when the nurse's head is pulled underwater while bathing the baby, matters take a deadly turn when she takes him for a walk in the park. Reaching out from his pram, he pushes her with such force that she falls, cracks her head on a lakeside rock, falls unconscious into the water and drowns. Lucy pays a visit to Tommy at the strip club, she intimates that, given the timing of the birth, there is a chance the baby could be his. "Just cause you’ve got some freaky offspring you wanna pin it on me?" he asks. However his curiosity is aroused and he asks to see the "spooky kid". Once at the house he leans over to peer into the baby's cot, only to reel back with a smashed and bloody nose. This temporarily pushes the baby up in Lucy's estimation and she gazes lovingly at him, until the face in the cot turns into that of Hercules. One evening Gino plans a romantic night-in to take Lucy's mind off her woes. At the end of a successful evening, he goes to check on the baby, only to find the nursery empty, the window open and odd noises coming from the garden. Going out to investigate, he looks up into a tree, whereupon a noose is thrust around his neck and he is hauled into the air and hanged, his body is then stuffed down a drain. The following day Lucy criss-crosses London in a frenzy trying to find her missing husband. Dr. Finch is summoned and pays an evening call to check on the baby and the distraught Lucy. After administering a powerful sedative to Lucy, he too hears strange noises. He unwisely steps out into the garden, and is decapitated with a spade (while still standing up). The trail of death continues as Lucy stumbles through the house in a groggy haze, pleading for her life to no avail as she is stabbed through the heart with a pair of scissors. Finally galvanized into action, Albana decides that she must perform an exorcism on the baby. Brandishing a crucifix at him and incanting in Latin, she bravely persists as the room shakes and the baby tears at her vestments. Meanwhile, at the strip club Hercules is on stage, and begins to stagger around in pain. Albana finally touches the crucifix to the baby's head, and his demons are cast out at the same time as Hercules falls over dead in front of a stunned audience.

Cast

as Lucy Carlesi * Ralph Bates as Gino Carlesi *

as Sister Albana *

as Dr. Finch * Hilary Mason as Mrs. Hyde * Caroline Munro as Mandy Gregory *

John Steiner John Steiner (7 January 1941 – 31 July 2022) was an English actor. Tall, thin and gaunt, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed on-stage for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but was best known to audiences for his roles ...

as Tommy Morris * George Claydon as Hercules * Janet Key as Jill Fletcher *

Derek Benfield Derek Benfield (11 March 1926 – 10 March 2009) was a British playwright and actor. He was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Bingley Grammar School. He was the author of the stage farce ''Running Riot'' and pla ...

as Police Inspector * Stanley Lebor as Police Sergeant * Judy Buxton as Sheila * Andrew Secombe as delivery boy *

Floella Benjamin Floella Karen Yunies Benjamin, Baroness Benjamin (born 23 September 1949), is a Trinidadian-British actress, singer, presenter, author and politician. She is known as presenter of children's programmes such as ''Play School (British TV series), ...

as nurse

Critical response

''I Don't Want to Be Born'' was initially a target of critical scorn. Andrew Nickolds of '' Time Out'' described the film as "derivative and disastrous in every respect: a poor idea ... an abominable screenplay by

("I keep getting these awful premonitions"), ludicrous acting ... and worst of all, Sasdy's direction. Almost every foot of film not concerned with the baby is travelogue at its most banal – extraneous shots of

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

and

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

, plugs for

Fortnum & Mason Fortnum & Mason plc (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an Luxury goods, upmarket department store in London, England. The main store is located at 181 Piccadilly in the St James's area of London, where it was established in 1707 ...

and

Holiday Inn Holiday Inn by IHG is a chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson (1913–2003), who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee. The chain was a division ...

s. Completing this sorry tale of rip-off is borrowing from ''

The Exorcist ''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...

973 Year 973 ( CMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – The Byzantine army, led by General Melias ( Domestic of the Schools in the East), continues the op ...

nbsp;... and any number of details from Amicus,

Hammer A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nail (fastener), nails into wood, to sh ...

and

Swinging London The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London denoted as its centre. It saw a flourishing in ...

horrors. Give it a wide berth." An American reviewer found the film "sensational and vulgar" and "an unholy cross" between ''The Exorcist'' and '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968), adding "why decent actors like Eileen Atkins and Donald Pleasence allowed themselves to be corralled into a mess like this is enigmatic." As ''The Devil Within Her'',

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

named the film as his "Dog of arch, 1976, drawing the same comparisons to ''The Exorcist'' put forth by Nickolds, while adding "the kid must have been a sound effects man in a previous incarnation because he makes noises like squad car sirens and stones banging around at empty garbage cans. He's also good at murdering everybody in the family even the family doctor, who is played by Donald Pleasence as if he wanted to be somewhere else and for that matter . . . so did I."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:I Dont Want To Be Born 1975 films 1975 horror films British supernatural horror films Demons in film Films about curses Films about exorcism Films set in London Films shot at Pinewood Studios Films scored by Ron Grainer Films directed by Peter Sasdy Films about striptease 1970s English-language films 1970s British films English-language horror films Horror films about child villains