I Don't Want to Be Born (1976)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Joan Collins (as Lucy) is an erotic dancer who rebuffs the advances of her dwarf co-star and is cursed to have the Devil's baby. She does. There's a lot scratched faces, a lot of shrieking music that promises more scares than the movie delivers, a lot of bad car parking by Ralph Bates, a nun played by the great Elieen Atkins, and a poorly utilized Donald Pleasence. A dismal rip-off of ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE OTHER & THE EXORCIST. To say that the direction by Peter Sasdy is awful would be an understatement. There's an inordinate amount of time spent on long shots of London landmarks. One wonders if perhaps the London tourist bureau had something to do with the film's financing. Sasdy stages a sex scene between Collins and Bates that is laughable as opposed to erotic. It owes a lot to Russ Meyer. There's nary a scare and the possessed baby is never seen doing any act of mayhem. Even more inexplicable: there's nobody named Sharon in this movie.

Combination "Rosemary's Baby"/"The Exorcist"/"It's Alive" rubbish from the UK, released there as "I Don't Want To Be Born", is an absolutely ridiculous occult thriller without one single redeeming attribute (apart from the camp factor, as well as a devilish dwarf who pops up dressed like a court jester). Low-rent showgirl Joan Collins is cursed by the little guy after spurning his advances, which leads to the malevolent possession of her newborn infant--who packs a mean right hook!--eventually becoming homicidal. Collins, flashing some skin, looks like she'd rather be elsewhere, perhaps in another naughty adaptation of one of her sister's tawdry books. The incredulous will either scoff or stick around for the unintended amusement, though it feels rather shameful to laugh while all these actors are being humiliated. NO STARS from ****

Horror films were a major feature of the British cinema in the sixties and early seventies, largely because such matter could not be seen on television, the broadcasting companies regarding it as being unfit for family viewing. "I Don't Want to Be Born" (aka "The Devil Within Her"), clearly shows the influence of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist", although the film to which it bears the greatest resemblance, in terms of its story, is "The Omen". Yet as it came out in 1975, a year earlier than that movie, it clearly cannot be an "Omen" rip-off. Perhaps "The Omen" was an "I Don't Want to be Born" rip-off.Like "The Omen", "I Don't Want to Be Born" involves a devilish child with a symbolically significant name. In "The Omen" he is called Damien, obviously a play on the word "demon". Here he is named Nicholas, presumably a reference to the fact that the Devil is sometimes referred to as "Old Nick". (I often wonder how this usage arose, given that Saint Nicholas, aka Father Christmas, is one of the most beloved saints of the Christian Church).Nicholas is the son of Lucy, a former nightclub stripper, and her husband, a wealthy Italian businessman living in London. (At least Lucy is assumed to be a stripper, although from what we see of her act it does not actually involve taking her clothes off. Joan Collins, at this point in her career, seems to have been rather more coy about nudity than she was to be a couple of years later in films like "The Stud" and "The Bitch"). The title refers to the baby's reluctance to come into this world; having been thrust into this vale of tears against his will has obviously had a deleterious effect on young Nicholas's character, as in the first few weeks of his life he proceeds to slaughter everyone who comes near him, including both his parents, his nanny and the doctor who delivered him. The only person who seems able to control him is his aunt, a nun who flies in from Italy to act as exorcist.I was a teenager in the seventies and recall constantly being told by my elders and betters that my generation were all a bunch of hooligans. Numerous explanations were put forward for this supposed epidemic of juvenile delinquency- boredom, youth unemployment, peer pressure, drugs, alcohol and the permissive society- but the cause of Nicholas's bad behaviour seems to be something more exotic, namely a curse placed upon his mother by a lustful dwarf whose sexual advances she rejected. The said dwarf is employed by the nightclub to prance around on stage while the girls are performing, although it is never explained why the club owner assumed that this bizarre diversion would increase the erotic allure of their performances.Although the film contains some well-known British actors of the period, including Donald Pleasence, Eileen Atkins, Caroline Munro and Ralph Bates, none of them bring much conviction to their roles. (Bates seemed to specialise in horror films- he also acted in "Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde", and this is referred to when in a hospital scene we hear an announcement for a "Dr Jekyll". The family's housekeeper is called Mrs Hyde). Collins looks incredibly glamorous for a woman in her early forties, but nevertheless manages to turn in one of the worst performances of her career, even though she could at times be very effective in horror films like "Tales from the Crypt"."The Exorcist" and "The Omen" may have their faults, but they are technically well-made films, well-acted and at their best genuinely scary. "I Don't Want to Be Born" is none of those things. It is a the sort of trashy low-budget horror flick, thing that the British film industry could churn out by the dozen and which generally showed that industry at its worst. The one good thing about it is that it came towards the end of the British horror boom. The genre declined in importance in the second half of the decade, largely because the broadcasting authorities were becoming more permissive about violence provided it was shown late at night, and in the eighties the industry, freed of its addiction to horror exploitation movies and silly sex comedies, underwent a revival when it returned to making intelligent and watchable films. "I Don't Want to Be Born", however, serves as a reminder of just how bad British cinema could be at its nadir. 2/10

Lying uncomfortably between barely watchable and so-bad-it's-good comes The Monster aka I Don't Want To Be Born aka The Devil Within Her. A British rip-off of Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and many others. This has a good cast with (a still looking good at 42) Joan Collins, Ralph Bates, Donald Pleasance and horror-eye-candy stalwart Caroline Munro. Collins plays an ex-stripper, now married to Italian Ralph Bates and the film starts with Collins going through a difficult child birth, or so we're meant to think. If that was meant to be bad, Mrs Steamcarrot must have been giving birth to Godzilla with our first born. Anyway, because of turning down a dwarf's advances the child is cursed to be possessed by the devil. In reality the ankle biter only has huge strength and a nasty attitude. All scenes of the 'demonic' brat hurting or killing people are off-screen. You see Collins recoiling in horror with scratch marks on her face, then cut to a picture of a very-undevilish baby looking all cutesy. Or a hand reaching out and shoving a nurse into a pond then cut back to cutesy kid, pram blankets unruffled. I don't mind a bit of suspension of disbelief, but this takes it too far. Anyway Ralph Bates' nun sister arrives, sporting silly accent and working at an animal testing laboratory (!), and thinks Collins' suspicions of possession is probably right. But she waits until everyone is killed to perform a simple exorcism that kills the cursing dwarf and returns the baby to normality. Why didn't she do that when she first arrived? No idea, it was only a bit of Latin and placing a cross on the forehead. This is a very silly film with hardly any redeeming features. Plus points include an unintentionally hilarious 'erotic' dance with said dwarf from Ms Collins, some nice shots of London and that's about it. Oh and the soundtrack to the lovemaking scene gave me a groaning chuckle. A disappointing 3. Director Peter Sasdy is capable of much better.