A Review of "The Baby"

“There shall be mayhem wherever he goes!” Judging by the poster, you would never guess this movie was rated PG. Such a strange film in the sense that I found myself never truly enjoying it, yet at the same time, I did not develop a hatred for it. I guess you could say that The Baby is the epitome of average. The story centers around a family of a single mother and three siblings, one of which is in his twenties and still acts like a baby. Whether he really is mentally handicapped or if his mother (Ruth Roman), the iron-willed matriarch of the family, is keeping him that way intentionally, because her husband left her and she was afraid of losing the only other man in her life to the “real world”, is never fully explained. I tend to lean towards the latter. Either way, there is an additional twist in the ending of this plot that makes the finished product only moderately interesting. The conflict that drives the story is a social worker (Anjanette Comer) stumbling upon the story of this family and becoming obsessed with the child, who has no name and is referred to only as “Baby”. She quickly draws the ire of the mother and two sisters who grow to detest her nosiness, and fear that she will uncover their secret and take the child from the family. Surprisingly, the acting is one of the strong points. Roman and Comer are both serious and believable in their roles, and the two weirdo sisters (Marianna Hill and Susanne Zenor) are good enough to piss you off in quite a few scenes. The only weak actor is David Mooney as the baby, and worse than that, the sound editor who had infant baby sounds coming out of his mouth the whole time. Whether his brain developed or not, as a 20-something year-old, his voice would have been that of a normal person that age. Due to the fact that he makes quite a lot of noise, it does take away from the viewing experience. Not a fantastic movie, but did a decent job with an obvious small budget. I have seen way better, but I have seen worse. Directed by Ted Post. Final Verdict: Doesn’t Suck (and never has that label been more appropriate).

Taken from: https://pictureinparagraph.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/review-the-baby-1973/