Social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer, RABBIT RUN) has taken on the strange wellfare case of "Baby" (David Manzy, HERBIE RIDES AGAIN), the youngest son of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman, THE WINDOW). Although in his twenties, "Baby" wears diapers, sleeps in a crib, and does not walk or speak (other than infant sounds). His two older sisters Germaine (Marianna Hill, MESSIAH OF EVIL) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor, THE WAY WE WERE) are a little short of normal as well. After spending some time with Baby (too much according to her supervisor as well as Mrs. Wadsworth), Ann believes that Baby should be a normal young man but has been kept an infant by a sort of "sick love," but Ann's motives for wanting to gain custody of Baby may be equally disturbing. Inexplicably rated PG, THE BABY is quite a unique seventies film. The melodramatic plot seems destined for a TV movie of the week, but director Ted Post and writer Abe Polsky take it into disturbing territory. Ann's connection to Baby is ambiguous but the viewer is suitably intrigued throughout, while Germaine and Alba use Baby to work out their respectively sexual and sadistic frustrations. Serious performances keep the film from edging over into camp despite a "birthday party of the damned" lit in gels like Visconti's THE DAMNED, but the film edges into slasher territory late in the film and then finishes off with a truly loopy ending. Former starlet Roman is not so much dignified as ballsy in her performance (compared to the exploitation work of Hollywood actors of an earlier era). Hill, so effectively numb as the protagonist of MESSIAH OF EVIL, is wonderfully demented here (in the birthday party scene, she looks like a refugee from a Fellini film). Zenor's character is not so subtly rendered as Hill's, but the actress is effective once we fully understand what her character's hangup is. Manzy's performance as "Baby" is hard to assess (he was dubbed by a real baby's voice). For the most part, he remains pitiful and affecting without crossing over into tasteless comedy. Beatrice Manley (BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY), as Ann's mother-in-law, is given little to do (possibly necessitated by plot ambiguities early on). Exploitation favorite Michael Pataki (GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE) has a sleazy supporting performance with a couple funny lines. The cinematography of Michael Margulies (DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY) is colorful and attractive, but is better served by widescreen framing (the open matte transfers have a TV-movie feel to them). The film's most bewildering element is not "Baby" but Gerald Fried's ravishingly beautiful orchestral score (sadly never released on LP or CD).