A ridiculous, flawed possession film dealing with a demonic baby who happily kills anyone around him. The main inspiration here comes from two films; THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY. Instead of slowly building an atmosphere of subtle suspense and terror, though, I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN opts for exploitation and cheap, shoddy, tepid thrills which aren't really worth the film they're imprinted upon. The material is stretched out over the ninety minutes running time, there are long shots of people walking around for no reason to make it last longer. Perhaps it if was shorter it would have been better but at this length it's tiring.With a good cast this film deserved to be better than it was, but director Peter Sasdy, who has done well in the past, just doesn't pull it off. The characters are all two dimensional, we don't feel anything for any of them. Ralph Bates has an Italian accent, but it keeps on slipping back to British in just one of the film's many flaws. Joan Collins adds some heavyweight power to the film but she isn't enough to make it any good. Donald Pleasance doesn't really have much to do while Caroline Munro is simply thrown in for some cheap glamour.In some ways the film is distasteful, too - the dwarf being the evil one behind it all (dwarves being a standard ploy to draw in the crowds. THE MUTATIONS, made in 1974, at least treated them sensibly). The box proclaims "Great horror with a high death rate." And four people get killed. Can we say hyperbole? For a much better killer baby film check out Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE. We do get to see a lot of the '70s though, meaning this film is badly dated, which can be a plus or a minus depending on whether you like that sort of thing. Also the sheer badness adds a sense of awe to things but any way you look at it, this film was dead on arrival.

Joan Collins and Ralph Bates (playing Italian ... with a thick accent) have a monstrously big baby that misbehaves violently ... biting Collins in the face when they are still in the hospital, throwing stuff around his nursery, etc. Collins, a former stripper, tells her stripper friend Caroline Munro (who sadly does not strip in this film), how a midget whose sexual advances she spurned cursed her to have a monster baby. The devil may also be involved somehow ... I don't know. With this crazy plot, a cast that also includes Donald Pleasence as Collins' doctor and John Steiner as a strip club owner, and a director who made a couple of smashing Hammer films, I really wanted to like this film. For a while I did, as I let the sleazy craziness wash over me and studiously ignored the shoddy awfulness of the whole thing. Sadly, I could not continue turning a blind eye to just how bloody awful this is. When the baby apparently jumps into a tree, ties a rope into a noose and hangs Bates to death ... no, just ... no. Hilary Mason, the blind sister from "Don't Look Now" is also present ... so much potential wasted.

This modest popcorn thriller from Britain boasts a solid performance from that fine actress and world-class beauty Joan Collins as a former stripper who marries Italian money and ends up on easy street, London style – or so she thinks. Unfortunately her firstborn turns out to be possessed by the spirit of a demonic nightclub clown whose advances she spurned shortly before her marriage. Even before the child is brought home from the hospital he has already drawn blood from an attack on his mother. The baby's diabolical screams are technically enhanced with reverb and echo effects, as are those of his victims. Toward the end there is a strong dream sequence in which Collins, under the influence of a sedative, makes her way through her house with space, time and the relationship of sounds to their source imaginatively distorted. Eileen Atkins plays, of all things, an Italian nun who also happens to be the leading lady's sister-in-law. She doesn't quite get the accent and in general seems ill-suited to the role. The English actor Ralph Bates as the Italian husband is equally out of place. Donald Pleasence does better in his supporting role as the doctor who attends to the troublesome infant as does Hilary Mason, so memorable as the blind psychic in "Don't Look Now," as the no-nonsense nanny. The actual baby looks ordinary and does nothing but smile or cry as all babies do, but through editing tricks and cleverly applied sound effects we believe he is indeed evil. Shot in vivid color and with an undertone of urban sleaziness, it's scary, sometimes silly and somewhat naughty fun.

I gave this a 7, not because it's actually good, but because it's just so freaking hilarious. Good horror movies are pretty rare, but as far as bad horror movies go, they can either be outright terrible, or completely hilarious. This one ranks pretty high in my "completely hilarious" category. (Baby is born possessed by evil midget that molests former stripper, baby goes on killing spree. Parents freak out, but chalk it up to postpartum depression. The mom's sister-in-law that happens to be a nun comes to visit, further upsets baby. Baby kills more people. Mom keeps freaking out but no one can conceive that a baby kills people despite this kid's freakishly large size for having been just born and its crazed reactions to nuns and holy water. Random scenes involving crazy evil midget, etc.) If you should, for some reason, feel like laughing manically at death scenes and evil babies, this one's a winner. Given, you will have to suffer through some terrible lighting and awful acting, but the sheer hilarity is almost worth it.