Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Manthast Absolutely amazing

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Michael_Elliott The Devil Within Her (1975)* (out of 4)Lucy (Joan Collins) and her husband Gino (Ralph Bates) welcome a new baby boy but right from the start they can tell there's something not quite right with him. Their doctor (Donald Pleasence) isn't sure what's the cause of his super strength and violent outbursts but before long Lucy fears it might have something to do with the dwarf that put a curse on her.THE DEVIL WITHIN HER was the AIP title given to this film, which was originally made as I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN. As you can tell from the plot, this here is basically another child possession movie, which was all the craze after the success of THE EXORCIST. No matter what you call this turkey, there's no question that it's downright awful on many levels. When you make a horror movie the main thing you're trying to do is scare people but that certainly doesn't happen here as there's not a single moment of suspense.So, what went wrong with this film? That's a good question because there's really nothing good here. What's so amazing is the fact that the horror elements are so awful as well. There's no suspense to be found and there's not even the slightest amount of tension. Another problem is that it's very poorly made and especially the various scenes where the baby attacks people. These scenes are poorly shot and poorly edited. In fact, they are at times embarrassing and especially since the baby's arms wouldn't reach some of the people that it is attacking.It also doesn't help that we're given some really bad performances. Collins and Caroline Munro share a really embarrassing scene where they're drinking and it really does seem as if they're going after each other trying to prove which one could overact the worst. Bates isn't any better in his role as the husband. Eileen Atkins is pretty good as Sister Albana and I'd argue that Pleasence was also quite good and especially since you almost made you believe the dialogue that he was saying.THE DEVIL WITHIN HER is a really, really awful movie on many levels. Thankfully it's bad enough to the point where there are a few scenes that you can laugh at. Still, the film really drags at times and there's just nothing to recommend.

James Hitchcock 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

agentkitty4894 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.

Libretio I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN (USA: The Devil Within Her) Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: MonoA nightclub stripper (Joan Collins) is cursed by a dwarf (George Claydon) whose attentions she spurned, and she later gives birth to a murderous baby possessed by a demonic spirit.Clearly inspired by the contemporary vogue for satanic shockers, this slapdash concoction - memorably dismissed by UK journalist Nigel Burrell as a 'crapulous farrago'! - was thrown together by Hungarian director Peter Sasdy, previously responsible for such superior offerings as "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1969), "Countess Dracula" (1970) and "Hands of the Ripper" (1971). Here, his contempt for the material is obvious in the weak storyline, feeble horror scenes and lackluster staging, and his concessions to the exploitation marketplace (strippers at work, a gory decapitation, etc.) are shoehorned into proceedings with reckless abandon.Quite apart from its ridiculous premise (unlike the mutant creature in Larry Cohen's similarly-styled IT'S ALIVE, sweet little babies simply aren't frightening, no matter how much filmmakers try to make them seem otherwise!), the movie is further stymied by indifferent performances and half-baked characterizations: Collins runs the gamut from A to B and back again, Donald Pleasence provides little more than marquee value as Collins' doctor, and Ralph Bates (playing the heroine's husband) is a blank slate throughout. Hilary Mason - the blind lady in DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) - plays the wary housekeeper, and Eileen Atkins is Bates' sister, a nun who performs the commercially-dictated climactic exorcism. Support is offered by Caroline Munro as a fellow stripper (though she looks far too glamorous to be playing such a lowbrow Cockney strumpet!) and Euro-favorite John Steiner as one of Collins' former boyfriends. There's enough campery to entertain die-hard fans, but the sloppy production values and leaden pace will certainly limit the film's appeal to anyone else. Oh, and watch out for abbreviated prints: If you don't see the head come off in the aforementioned decapitation sequence, you're viewing a censored version...