I Don't Want to Be Born

Sasdy, once thought by many to be the great black hope for British horror films, here turned in - aptly enough - an abortion. Comparing unfavourably with It's Alive (made the previous year), it is both derivative and disastrous in every respect: a poor idea (Joan Collins gives birth to a big baby possessed by a devil whose medium is a dwarf she once spurned), an abominable screenplay by Stanley Price ('I keep getting these awful premonitions'), ludicrous acting (poor Eileen Atkins as an Italian nun), and worst of all, Sasdy's direction. The market for this film must have been planned as the Continent or the States, because almost every foot of film not concerned with the baby is travelogue at its most banal - extraneous shots of Westminster and Oxford Street, plugs for Fortnum & Mason and Holiday Inns. Completing this sorry tale of rip-off is borrowing from The Exorcist, Hilary Mason from Don't Look Now, and any number of details from Amicus, Hammer and Swinging London horrors. Give it a wide berth.