by Brad Paulson
A social worker pushes for an assignment that brings her closer to an adult baby. Can you blame her?
This film is an unadulterated classic. It was made back in the day when low budget movies were actually shot on film. In 1973, the man who brought us Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Magnum Force, and four episodes of to-date the best TV series ever, The Twilight Zone, bestowed upon us the wonderful gift to cinema that is The Baby. His name was Ted Post and I don’t know if this movie was the result of his or the writer’s (Abe Polsky) drug binge (there was a lot of acid going around in those days), or what exactly inspired it, but God bless its muse. There’s nothing else like this film out there.
This was a very obscure film before Netflix added it to their streaming catalog. I remember going to Suncoast Video years ago after we had finished The Bloodstained Bride and being told it was available in stores. I went to our local mall twice a week for a month and never saw it. What I did see on the shelf in the B-section for horror was a multi-pack of films that The Baby was part of. The image on the cover made an imprint on my mind: an ominous looking crib with man sized legs hanging out of it accompanied by an arm holding a bloody axe.
“Wait,” I told myself. “Is this a movie about an adult baby?” “No,” I quickly responded to my own question. “It’s a movie about a killer adult baby!” “Oh, this could be good,” the inner dialogue intensified. My fascination with The Baby kept growing as I teetered on the edge of buying it, but declined time after time, convinced that it would either be shitty or boring. Little did I know, I was keeping myself from an absolute, under-the-radar gem.
The day finally arrived that The Bloodstained Bride made it to my local Suncoast. I remember being thrilled to see it, but then looking over and seeing The Baby vying for my attention. If I would have just bought it right then and there, my curiosity would have been satisfied. But I didn’t. However, the image on that box cover was stuck in my mind and it stayed there as the years passed. Before long it had woven its way into my psyche as I found my fascination with not only the movie, but adult babies in general growing. I never stopped thinking about that movie. I was like Ryan Gosling in The Notebook (except for the fact I look nothing like him), dwelling on a lost love I couldn’t have.
And then one glorious day I saw that Netflix added The Baby to streaming. I immediately watched it and was instantly pissed off at myself for keeping myself from this treasure all those years. Nine times out of ten I would have been right about predicting a movie like this to be shittiness, but not in this case. In this case, I was wrong for ever doubting it. But then again that’s what makes movies like these so interesting. When you’re garbage diving you’re going to get pretty filthy. Occasionally, however, you’re going to find some gold.
After watching, I also realized this movie is an anomaly because it functions as both a drive-in movie and an effective drama. How many times can you say this about underground cinema marketed as low-budget exploitation horror?
As The Baby opens with social worker Ann Gentry looking at pictures of a young child over a sweeping rich score, there’s a gothic feel to the piece. It’s like one of those Roger Corman movies he adapted from the Poe classics. The pictures span over time until the baby becomes an adult, looking through the bars of his crib, appearing confused, trapped and wounded.
Gentry is played with wonderfully convincing empathy by Anjanette Comer. From the first scene she is fascinated with the case before she’s even officially on it. When she arrives at the house of the baby, she meets two really hot sisters, Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor) Wadsworth, and their mother, Mrs. Wadsworth (the Joan-Crawford-esque Ruth Roman). We get the sense that weird shit’s going on, despite Mrs. Wadsworth playing it cool and relaxed as she welcomes Ann into her home.
Gentry doesn’t waste much time before she starts asking questions about the family’s relationship with the adult baby.
“I notice you call him Baby and the case history doesn’t show any other name. What is his real name?” asks Ann.
“Just Baby,” replies Mrs. Wadsworth.
Referring to a grown man as Baby sets off a few red flags, and even more when Ann finds out the only real income the family has is what the county gives them for Baby, which is hilarious because the three adults in the house are essentially sponging off of the baby.
We find out that Mrs. Wadsworth is a little bitter because her husband took off and left the family right before Baby was born. More red flags. And yet more when Ann asks to see Baby and spots nervous glances between Mrs. Wadsworth and Germaine. Mrs. Wadsworth soon takes Ann upstairs where her son (a fully-grown man) sleeps in a crib while dressed like a baby.
Ann lays wide eyes upon the bizarre scenario and instantly has a case of the adult baby bug. From that moment forward, she’s a regular visitor at the Wadsworth home. Doing so adds an element of unease to how the family reacts to her. Especially since the workers prior to Gentry would only visit the house twice a year. Now Ann’s showing up like she’s kin. She volunteers to spoon feed the baby under the psychotic, leering eyes of sister Germaine. Is it jealousy in her eyes or just simple bat-shit craziness?
Even stranger is when Gentry witnesses Mrs. Wadsworth massaging the baby’s legs so his muscles won’t go bad even though that big bugaboo has been crawling like he’s been training for a marathon.
The red flags keep raising as Ann’s boss becomes concerned when he sees she’s spending so much time with Baby. He recommends she ease back a bit and concentrate more on her emergency cases. To make matters worse, we learn that the last social worker who looked too much into the Baby case vanished and was never found again. This strangely doesn’t seem to bother her boss at all, nor Ann for that matter. She’s got the full-fledged adult baby bug. We can see it in her eyes. Once you go adult baby, you can never be bothered with regular social worker cases again!
By this point in the movie it’s becoming challenging to keep track of how many red flags have been raised. All of which Ann is too busy to recognize because she’s been busy going back and forth from the Wadsworth house playing with Baby. She segues this play time into covertly trying to see if Baby can walk by playing fetch with the ball. This does not go unnoticed by the sisters as Alba drags Baby away while he protests. And can you blame him? His evil sister took his teddy bear away, the heartless wretch!
Unfortunately, Baby’s positive role model Ann has some problems of her own, which probably has to do with why she’s so personally interested in the case. These issues are dug up a bit as Germaine walks her out and lays psycho eyes on her as she asks about her husband. Ann switches the conversation to Baby and Germaine invites her to go hiking. I’m unsure whether the invite is lesbian date night related or if Germaine just wants to take Ann up in the woods and push her off the cliff. Regardless, Ann declines, which is clearly the smartest decision she’s made in the entire movie up to this point. (Unless, of course, Germaine’s invitation really was all about lesbian date night.)
As Ann drives away from the Wadsworth house, we see how derailed she really is as she thinks of her husband. Then Baby. Then the husband. Then back to Baby as she’s driving home. She arrives home and settles in to drink and watch slides of her husband as her mother-in-law sits there quietly in the background.
Ann is clearly riddled with guilt by something that happened to her husband. She sobs relentlessly as she’s comforted by her mother in law. Perhaps this is another connection for her to Baby? She lives with her mother-in-law and Baby lives with his mother. Both are grown-ups living in respective states of infancy.
Enter an attractive Vicki Lawrence-esque babysitter hired to watch Baby as the Wadsworth ladies go out on the town. The adult baby babysitter sloths about watching TV while Baby is upstairs in his crib. She’s on the phone with her boyfriend, who’s trying to get laid and pushing it every step of the way.
“No, Billy you can’t come over. You know about the freak.”
But that darned Billy just won’t listen. He keeps going for broke as the sitter replies, “Now what kind of a question is that? You know I’m wearing panties.” More of what I could only assume to be relentless begging for sex from Billy ensues as the adult baby babysitter agrees to drop by his place when she’s done and gets him off the phone by saying, “Listen, I have to go see about the baby.”
The adult baby’s babysitter follows the sound of his crying into the nursery and discovers he has a wet diaper. She changes it for him and powders him to boot. This is what I would call an all-purpose babysitter! As Baby pounds on his crib distressed, she lets him out and he immediately books it right for the door. By the way, this would be red flag I-don’t-even-know-how-many by now that there is something very wrong happening in this house. She tries to bring him back to the crib and the clumsy adult baby bonks his head.
He bawls relentlessly and she picks him up and attempts to comfort him by kissing him on his forehead. This act either cranks his adult baby engine into gear or he figures since he’s stuck there he may as well try and score. Baby immediately attempts vitamin D withdrawal. At first the adult baby babysitter protests, but then seems not to mind. I’m unsure whether this is fetish related or because it’s the most effective way she knows to stop the crying.
Mrs. Wadsworth and her daughters return home just in time to catch Baby and the sitter in the middle of naughty play time. Their reaction reveals just how twisted their relationship is with Baby. Not only does Baby get diaper-blocked but Mrs. Wadsworth goes full Crawford on the sitter. Instead of trying to stop her actions, the sisters defend her.
“You tell anybody about this and we’ll press charges!” warn the sisters to the adult baby babysitter. “You were abusing a mental case and that’s a criminal offense!” And the best bullshit excuse award for beating the crap out of a babysitter and spinning it to somehow be her fault goes to…the Wadsworth family!
Meanwhile Ann continues to seek help for Baby. She attempts to get the hot blonde sister on her side with unsuccessful results. The reply she gets is, “Baby was born backwards. He’s been that way all his life. And that’s all there is to it.”
The tensions between Ann and Mrs. Wadsworth continue to escalate as Ann suspects Baby is being kept from any emotional development whatsoever. Baby is not treated well by sister Alba. She uses what looks like a cattle prod against him for cooperating with Ann.
Germaine on the other hand, seems to have more of a soft spot for Baby and proves this by removing her clothing and crawling into the crib with him when it’s time to go nite-nite. However, the act isn’t technically considered incest since Ann is a sister from another father. In fact, we learn that all three siblings are from different fathers. For some strange reason, each guy must have found Mrs. Wadsworth a tad controlling.
Ann tries a new strategy to help Baby by setting up a meeting with the Wadsworth family and her supervisors. Not only are they a no show, they file a complaint against her. In a bout of bravery, Ann goes back to the house of the baby, tells Mrs. Wadsworth what she thinks of her and that she’s going to sic the public guardian on her. She also mentions that she intends fighting her for the custody of Baby.
Ann does not leave that house on good terms with Mrs. Wadsworth, but her threat about the guardian seems to work as Mrs. Wadsworth calls for a peace treaty and invites her to a birthday party they’re having for Baby.
Ann makes the poor decision of attending and finds herself surrounded by a bunch of swinger-looking types as flute style porn music plays in the background. Baby looks very confused as everyone has a good time and brings him a cake.
As the party kicks into gear, bad 70s dancing occurs as the Wadsworth family attempts to push alcohol on Ann. She refuses, wanting to have her full faculties, but her request to talk about Baby is delayed by Mrs. Wadsworth as she gives her the brush off and hits on several different guys at the same time. Ann herself gets harassed by a sleazy guy with terrible, yet amusing pickup lines. “Lady, there’s only one thing I see in those big, beautiful, cat eyes: hunger.”
“Buzz off creep. There’s a difference between hunger and starvation.” Ann retorts.
It doesn’t take long before the sisters are able to switch Ann’s drink and drag her off into another room. Ann wakes tied up. Baby wanders into the room and finds her. He removes Ann’s mouth gag but finds himself too preoccupied with his own drooling and idiotic babbling to untie her.
Back at the party, hot Alba is having quite the time with a sleazy guy. They innocently flirt with one another.
“Will you do it the way I like it?” Alba asks.
“Does a cannibal eat raw meat?” the sleazy guy responds.
“Okay, cannibal. Let’s test your appetite.”
Things seem to be going well for the sleazy guy until crazy-ass Alba wants to put a lighter flame under his finger.
“I’ll do anything to get to paradise, but does it have to be in an ambulance?” the sleazy guy asks.
Apparently it does because Alba seems to get off on this sort of thing.
Despite the sleazy guy’s cheesy lines (although, people did legitimately talk like that back then), the rest of the movie is played very straightforward and that’s one of the many things I love about it. Especially the fact that they take this approach and it works.
While Alba is involved in psychotic finger burning foreplay with the sleazy guy, Ann locates a hacksaw and uses it on her ropes. Some help the baby was on that. It made me want to yell at the screen “Thanks, Baby, you useless asshole!” However, despite Baby’s lack of assistance, Ann does manage to escape and take him with her even though the idiot is half drooling in a corner of the room playing with his teddy bear. Note to villains: if you have to leave the hero in a room alone, remove all weapons and/or implements of escape.
Ann and Baby make it out of the house before Mama and the sisters kick everyone out of the party, the most difficult of course being the sleazy guy. To their great dismay, they discover Ann driving off with Baby in the car. Mrs. Wadsworth and her daughters are about to chase her, but discover their tires have been slashed. Mama seems to have an odd kind of respect for Ann as she utters, “She thinks of everything” and “I’m beginning to understand that girl” after the sisters are puzzled trying to figure out why she wouldn’t just go to the police. At this point Mrs. Wadsworth and Ann are basically on opposite sides of the same coin, each vying for possession of Baby.
Ann takes Baby home, gives him a bath and puts him in a suit. She does not go to the cops. Mrs. Wadsworth is devastated by the loss of her adult baby. Hot blonde daughter Alba doesn’t help matters much when she mentions to Mama that they should have let the circus sideshow take Baby when they had the chance.
Grinding the salt even deeper into her wounds, Mrs. Wadsworth receives a letter from Ann that reads: “In a short time the Baby you once knew will no longer exist.” Ann doesn’t stop there. She drives her “fuck you” message home to Mrs. Wadsworth loud and clear by closing the letter with “Your baby is lost to you forever.”
Mrs. Wadsworth falls into Ann’s trap, takes her daughters and heads for Ann’s house to attack her in the dark of night. The sisters enter the house while Mrs. Wadsworth stays in the car.
As Germaine moves through the house there’s an air of creepiness as she follows the sounds of a crying baby. To me, this is the greatest wandering through a house while weird sounds occur in the background scene ever. Mama finally gets freaked and decides to enter the house herself. She finds her daughters dead and gets herself in a fight with the not only prepared Ann, but also her mother-in-law. Axe and fire poker fight ensues with an added cleaver assist from mother-in-law. Wanting to take Mrs. Wadsworth alive as she claims she has broken legs, Ann has her killer lackey back off.
Ann and her mother-in-law ruthlessly bury Mrs. Wadsworth alive next to her dead daughters. This made me remember that during this time films with incredibly disturbing subject matter and tone were rated PG.
With the threat to Baby now eliminated, Ann is free to keep him as her own. Yet, we discover that what we thought to be a compassionate social worker, a woman who has fought so hard to remove Baby from his imprisonment, has harbored selfish intentions. She brings Baby into a room she has converted into a nursery and introduces him to her husband — a man who suffered such devastating injuries from the car accident that Ann was responsible for, he has become an adult baby. To Ann this is the perfect happy ending. She has a playmate for her husband and from the way she hugs and kisses both men on the lips, perhaps even something else.
This is one of the most unique surprise endings ever captured on film. Especially from a mainstream director like Post.
The Baby is a film of brilliance that’s way ahead of its time. It elevates the drive-in genre it’s advertised among. It’s an under-theradar exploitation movie that takes a serious approach and pulls it off magnificently. It utilizes subtlety and great performances. David Manzy does an utterly outstanding job playing the lead role of Baby. His performance is 99% dialogue free and it is perfect. If an adult baby acting school ever opens, he should be their poster child — the Marlon Brando of adult baby actors.
The only thing I don’t like about The Baby is the fact the distributors marketed it as a killer adult baby movie and, although that would make a great movie, it’s not this one. The box cover is misleading. The adult baby was innocent. It was all the people supposedly trying to help him that were the real villains.
Get yourself a date and treat them to a screening of The Baby. If they stay for the entire film, they may just be the one for you (either that or you’ll need a restraining order). And, if you bring a pair of diapers, neither one of you will even have to get up to go to the bathroom!