Movie Review: The Monster (1975)

The Monster (aka Sharon’s Baby, I Don’t Want To Be Born) is a horror film written by Stanley Price and Nato De Angeles and directed by Peter Sasdy. It’s about a woman who has a baby that is seemingly evil as mysterious things happen soon after giving birth.

To give this some backstory, Lucy (Joan Collins) talks about a time in which she is backstage after a performance where she works as a stripper. It goes into a flashback scene where a little person named Hercules (George Claydon) who is another performer tries to grope her when he’s giving her a shoulder massage. Lucy isn’t having it and screams when his little hands go into full grope mode.

As Lucy is leaving for the night, Hercules curses her saying that she will have a baby as big as he is small, and possessed by the Devil.

Lucy and the baby’s father Gino (Ralph Bates) experience strange behavior from the baby starting right after it is born. Starting with scratching the mother, throwing things at people, biting everyone, and some more tame incidences, but then things start getting weird. Some people from the church seem to notice something weird happening as well.

The baby starts growing and doing some more evil things like pushing the nanny into a lake, trying to drown someone in a bathtub, punching someone in the face, and even hanging someone.

We don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was somewhat anti-climactic, which is kind of the theme throughout most of the film. The scenes with the baby would just show a regular baby laying there and then something would happen after it cuts away. Being released in 1975 we have to give them a pass on the special effects as there really wasn’t a better way to film a lot of the things the baby was doing, but there wasn’t really a lot going on in between to make up for it. There were a couple of scenes where the practical effects were pretty good, though.

Overall, we would have to say that while it may not hold up to a lot of standards today, for 1975 this would have been a decent horror film. The acting was pretty good and even Donald Pleasence (Halloween) is in this. The production and directing were great, and even the story wasn’t bad. We feel like for the standards in 1975 this would have been good and would definitely recommend fans of ’70s horror to check this one out. You can get it from Network for the first time in high-definition starting tomorrow, 10/11/21 at the link here:

https://new.networkonair.com/british_horror_classics

Trailer: 

Info about the release here:

THE MONSTER aka I DON’T WANT TO BE BORN (1975)
Joan Collins gives an unforgettable performance as a stripper cursed by a sinister dwarf to
give birth to a demonic child in this classic 1970s exploitation horror directed by
Hammer/Amicus veteran Peter Sasdy (Director, Countess Dracula, Taste the Blood of
Dracula). Co-starring Eileen Atkins, Ralph Bates, Donald Pleasence and Caroline Munro,
The Monster (aka I Don’t Want to be Born) is featured here as a brand-new high definition
remaster from original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio.
Special Features
• Brand-new audio commentary from the cult Second Features podcast team
• Theatrical trailer
• Alternative I Don’t Want to be Born titles
• Image gallery
• Limited edition booklet written by Adrian Smith
Tech Specs
• 1080p HD
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Running time: 94 mins
• HOH subtitles

• Certificate: 15
• Region code: B
• BD Cat: 7958387,
DVD cat: 7956201

• RRP: BD, £17.99,
DVD: £12.99
• Original Release: 1975