Maitland Favorites: The Baby

Third in an occasional series recommending lesser-known, kick-you-in-the-gut classics.

The Baby (1973) is a horror movie. I say this since I suppose you could call it “psychological suspense,” but it’s just plain disturbing on so many levels I'm going with horror. And for my fellow horror aficionados, it’s an unsung curio you might want to see. Just be forewarned — you’ll never be able to unsee it.

Social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) pulls up to a slightly shabby house in a neighborhood that’s seen better days. She’s here to visit the Wadsworth family: Mother Mrs. Wadsworth (former femme fatale Ruth Roman), her oversexed daughters, Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor), and their brother (David Mooney, billed as David Manzy) who’s prelingual, crawls rather than walks, wears adult diapers because he hasn’t been potty trained and is looked after by his family as though he were an actual baby, not an adult man. He doesn’t even have a given name — he’s just “Baby” — and he has what must surely be a custom-built playpen, complete with a hinged side that can be opened (from the outside only) so he can crawl in and out.