The devil came to the pram—and brought a Hammer cast with him.

Also known by several more sensational titles—The Devil Within Her, Sharon’s Baby, and It’s Growing Inside Her—Peter Sasdy’s I Don’t Want to Be Born is one of the stranger, more uneven horror offerings of 1975. Half supernatural shocker, half demonic soap opera, the film boasts a surprisingly strong cast and a deeply odd premise that has earned it a peculiar kind of cult status over the past fifty years.

Set in a heightened, almost surreal version of London, the film sees Joan Collins’ character give birth to a monstrously violent baby—seemingly possessed by the vengeful spirit of a spurned dwarf lover. What follows is a bizarre series of deaths, each more absurd than the last, all linked by the ominous presence of a pram and its pint-sized occupant.

Though the concept teeters on the edge of parody, Sasdy—who brought genuine Gothic flair to Hammer productions like Taste the Blood of Dracula and Countess Dracula—attempts to play it mostly straight. His direction tries to keep the tone grounded, but the outlandish plot frequently undercuts any attempt at gravitas.

Joan Collins, in full glam-horror mode, commits admirably to the madness. Her co-star Ralph Bates, with whom she previously appeared in Hammer’s Fear in the Night, provides a steadying presence. The cast is stacked with familiar faces from British genre cinema—Donald Pleasance as a soft-spoken doctor, Eileen Atkins as a nun with spiritual insight, and the ever-iconic Caroline Munro in a brief but welcome turn.

Despite its flaws—and they are many—the film’s connections to Hammer’s waning golden age give it an air of familiarity. In many ways, I Don’t Want to Be Born feels like a last gasp of the studio’s supernatural melodrama, though filtered through the grittier, more sensationalistic lens of mid-‘70s exploitation cinema.

The Prognosis:

On its 50th anniversary, it’s fair to say that I Don’t Want to Be Born is more curiosity than classic. But for devotees of Collins, Sasdy, and the weird crossover space between Hammer horror and post-Exorcist hysteria, it’s an oddly compelling footnote in British horror history.

• Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte