The Devil Within Her (1975)/I Don't Want to Be Born

How Joan Collins could find herself in an even worse film that "Empire of the Ants" (1977) is astounding, with poor Donald Pleasence (who was not immune to bad films, either) stuck with dialogue such as "It's hard to write prescriptions for evil". Poor Ralph Bates, as the Italian husband to Collins' British former-stripper, lands a role that isn't at all villainous, cartoonish, or outlandish, and he ends up hung from a noose by a possessed baby (possessed, mind you, by the evil from a smaller man named Hercules (George Claydon) who felt slighted by Collins when she rejects his groping advances backstage at the strip club!), drug to a manhole where he's dumped into the sewer, and left there! The director of this film (Hammer's own Peter Sasdy of "Taste the Blood of Dracula", "Countess Dracula" and "Hands of the Ripper"), a solid filmmaker with clear talent behind the camera with a credible career in film and television, should have taken an Alan Smithee. The absolutely absurd plot about Claydon getting mad at Collins after she shoos him away while he was grabbing her breasts with a sleazy grin on his face, cursing her with a possessed offspring alone has me wondering about how any of the talents in this turkey didn't look at the script and not laugh out loud. I imagined Collins reading through some of the script, page turning with giggles. Pleasence, who keeps a straight face when anyone else with his lines as a pediatrician/baby doc trying to determine what would be the best course of action regarding Collins' violent baby--whose conversation with the very talented Eileen Atkins (as Sister Albana) about his medicine accomplishing nothing, raising the possibility of an exorcism, could almost easily fit within "Repossessed" (1990)--would probably at least crack a bit of a grin, maintains his composure. 

How the film has the baby hurt, injure, and kill folks (and the exorcism at the end) with Claydon's face emerging sometimes to remind us he's responsible for this disastrous storyline concept, has to be seen to be believed. Sasdy was stuck with the unenviable task of convincing us that the baby, a cute little boy with a sweet smile, would push his nanny into a lake where she bangs her head against a rock, scratch faces with his finely-trimmed finger nails, toss a room into a chaotic mess, hang his daddy by a rope in the front yard, drop a rat in his parents' maid's tea, and stab mommy with a knife while beating open her bedroom door even as she tries to shut it. Entrusting Sasdy (or anybody) to get us to believe that the cute baby would lop Pleasence's head off with a spade in two swings and drag Bates to a manhole isn't exactly accomplished here. But I have no doubt that many viewers who grew up with this have fond late night memories of The Devil Within Her (1975). I admittedly watched in sheer bewilderment at how such good actors and a solid director somehow got pulled into such a project. This damned trashfire has something like four different titles (on Wikipedia, the film is called "I Don't Want to Be Born" while on the IMDb, it's called "Sharon's Baby"!) with an opening sequence where Pleasence is in the delivery room under the "hot light" as Collins writhes as if she's about to have an orgasm. Even Caroline Munro is stuck with a role as a stripper and friend to Collins, given next to nothing to do except try and keep her friend from having a nervous breakdown. Pleasence continues to run tests, draw blood, and look at the results with no signs of physical illness or reason for the baby to ever be homicidal or violent.

Included in the film is a subplot involving a former lover of Collins, played by John Steiner, her ex-employer and possible father of the demon child. And to make sure we know without a shadow of a doubt that this was "inspired" by "The Exorcist" (1974), "The Devil Within Her" has Atkins with book of exorcism in hand taking on the evil possessing the baby. The film, to make sure to hammer home that Claydon is the mastermind behind the evil causing the baby to kill, has him gradually worsening while dancing girls at Steiner's popular strip club continue to romp around him! Only that one scene, a flashback told by Collins to Munro, establishes Claydon as evil besides his face often replacing the baby when folks are about to die. When he's back at Steiner's club he seems like a normal guy used for acts because of his smaller height. 

The film's title would have you believe that the possession is caused by Satan or some demon. That it is Claydon, with his face very much populating the film plentifully, definitely adds to the film's notoriety. I couldn't take any of the attacks seriously, and Claydon's face along with the cute baby before and after the hilariously staged murders doesn't do the film any favors. Sasdy throws some stripper tits in there for titillation and a shocker ending with the possessed baby wiping out most of the principles. I did shout in my head at the screen at the very end as Atkins exorcises the baby and as a result the boy is all smiles and happy...after everyone is already DEAD!!!! Why couldn't Atkins have exorcised the child before the evil killed like five people?! 1/5

*To further add details of this film, the nanny is found being drowned in a baby bath dish when Collins and Bates return home from a night out. When asked why she was bathing the baby so late, the nanny mentions how the child has "filthed" the crib. Sasdy just couldn't find ways to shoot the baby holding the nanny in his bath water so the editing fails to convince us. Sasdy was stuck with lots of quick edits and camera workarounds that just couldn't accomplish anything but cause unintentional laughter.

**Steiner visits the baby at Collins' request to see if he can find any resemblance and the baby subsequently socks him in the face!

***A question I had as the police arrive at the home of the baby is who will be arrested? Atkins is there with the baby when they arrive so how is she to tell them that the responsible party for the murders is evil now exorcised?