'The Monster' (1970) – Peter Sasdy

Beloved Hammer alumnus, Peter Sasdy's perverse, post-natal nightmare 'The Monster' features one of the more dastardly diminutive, diaper-draped devils in Brit-Horror's heroically hideous history! The ungodly nature of this Satanic Sprite is to instil a grisly phantasmal fright in all who cast their incredulous eyes upon the benign exterior of this monstrously malevolent mite. While the malign ministrations of this infernal, mammary mauling infant are purest unleavened schlock, his outré matricidal machinations remain a deliciously off-key premise! No poorly remembered horror film based upon the curse of a voyeuristic, sexually frustrated dwarf can ever truly be without a modicum of Mephistophelean mirth.

Boasting a fine cast, Ralph Bates and glamorous terror-temptress, Joan Collins are ably supported by Donald Pleasence, Eileen Atkins, and the voluptuous vamp Caroline Munro. Atkins is divine as the sternly sin-slashing Sister Albana, and there's nun more suited to exorcise the mother goring imp! Engagingly silly, but while dramatically small in stature, Sasdy's 'The Monster' is delightfully deformed! A murderous umbilicus of preternatural horror draws ever-tighter around the onlookers fear-constricted throat, and the final trimester of teat-tormenting terror will have you grasping for your terminal breast! A great many of the film's detractors regard it as stillborn, while I'm nappily screaming its schlocky praises, baby! Amen!

'Fatally Natal nightmare 'The Monster' aka 'I don't Want to Be Born' remains a hallucinatory, hysteria-laden Brit-Horror masterclass in diminutive demonic despotism! - Weirdlingwolf.