nightmares - the baby

Imagine if you took that flat, over-lit look of a 1970s sitcom and inserted the most twisted, bizarre scenario you could come up with? The disconcerting result would be The Baby, directed by TV veteran Ted Post, about a family of three scheming women who keep a 20-year-old manchild locked up in a crib. The storyline is unusual enough on its own, but combined with Post’s deadpan visual style (or anti-style) is becomes flat-out disturbing, yet compulsively watchable. Although it’s rated PG, The Baby dances around more images of child abuse, overt sexuality and emotional torture than a David Lynch film. Yet it’s the nuanced performance of former ‘50s starlet Ruth Roman as Baby’s mother, who rules her family like a matriarchal Marlon Brando, that you’ll remember most. Not unlike 1968’s Spider Baby, the Wadsworth’s family ties create a web that hopelessly traps anyone who tries to break them up.

The Baby stands alone as one of the most surreal movie experiences of the 1970s. And Arrow Videos new Blu-ray includes options for both a widescreen and TV aspect ratio, a new audio commentary and retrospective, plus archival audio interviews with Ted Post and David Mooney.