Sometimes there are films so bad they're good. But in the case of 1975's THE DEVIL WITHIN HER, it's so bad its flat out hilarious in all the wrong ways.
Joan Collins is an overacting mess as former stripper Lucy, who is giving birth to a very nasty little tyke as the opening titles roll.
She's married to an Italian business man horribly played by English actor Ralph Bates. He has NO Italian accent for the first 20 minutes, then suddenly sounds like he's just left Florence, then later, no accent. I couldn't stop laughing.
Donald Pleasance plays a confused doctor, three years before his master class as troubled physician Dr. Loomis in John Carpenter's "Halloween".
This baby is something.
Going for an "Exorcist" or "Rosemary's Baby" vibe, it fails laughably.
The newborn seems to be as strong as a grown man and has the ability to brandish scissors. At one point, it breaks out a second story window, climbs into a tree, lowers a noose around a guy, pulls the grown man into the air and then drops him to the ground and pulls him into a cellar.
WTF? That baby is ripped!
The scary scenes are all hilarious, with less intensity than a Disney movie. Add in a subplot about a dwarf that hosts a strip club and a slimy club owner that's dying to jump back in the sack with Joan and you've got one weird midnight movie.
Oh damn, I almost forgot the Italian Nun who just happens to be Joan's husband's sister, sister. I'm not sure what's worse, the accents or the effects.
OO7 fans should watch for Caroline Munro who played Naomi in "The Spy Who Loved Me" and a gypsy girl in "From Russia With Love".
Based on the sheer amount of time that we watch people drive around London and parallel park, I can only imagine they only had about a 75 minute movie and gave a crew about $100 bucks to go shoot a LOT of driving around shots. I wasn't sure if this was a DMV instructional film or a horror movie.
This was called "I Don't Want To Be Born" and "Sharon's Baby" in some theatres. Anyone that saw it likely called it crap.
The scariest scene is when Joan takes her clothes off. Avert your eyes! Hide!!!
THE DEVIL WITHIN HER gets an F. An unintentionally hilarious, great big F.
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