The Baby (1973)

Dir: Ted Post

An obscure 70s movie that's garnered cult classic status over time, I remember reading about this some twenty years ago and yet I've only now got round to watching it. I have to admit that it was a disappointment. Once you get over the shock of the unpleasant premise, it's really quite a boring film. A grown man with the apparent mental capacity of a small infant is treated like one by his mother and two older sisters. They keep him in a crib, call him only "Baby" and punish him with cattle prods when he does anything that might suggest he's growing up. There's a social worker trying to save "Baby" but it's clear from the start that she may have her own ulterior motives and dark secrets too... Some of the special 70s touches - the hair, the lighting, the costumes, the dancing, Suzanne Zenor - are enjoyable but these can't save the drab, lifeless TV-movie-like script/direction and the fact that it's just a little bit offensive. It deals with heavy subject matter like mental illness and child abuse in a way that's neither sensitive and well-informed, nor intentionally, gleefully tasteless. Instead it's just a bit misguided and leaves an aftertaste somewhere between a yuck and a yawn. *