I can say that I personally really love this movie. It was SO not what I thought it was gonna be when I started watching it. I can't even remember where I originally heard about this film, only that I managed to find it on YouTube and thought it was wonderful. Strange as it is, I think it's actually really well done and the premise is completely original in so many ways. Made in 1973, it took a while for this film to catch on cuz it was just so damn weird, but it had at least one famous actress in it and a few then-unknown actresses in it that would become semi-famous down the road. Ruth Roman had been in a hundred different movies by the time she made The Baby, mostly Westerns and several TV shows like The Outer Limits, I Spy, and Mission Impossible. But I think by the time she made this film, she was just trying to pay the rent. Anjenette Comer had done some television before making this film but gained a decently respectable resume' after starring in The Baby. Susanne Zenor didn't do much during or after this film but she was the original actress chosen to play Chrissie Snow on Three's Company but lost out at the last minute to another blonde bimbo named Suzanne (Somers). She eventually did get to have a brief walk-on part in Three's Company as a character named Samantha. Shame though, I think she would've taken that role to a whole new interesting level.
Anyway, on with the story. Ann Gentry (Anjenette Comer) is a social worker who is looking for something, a particular kind of client, at first we're not sure why yet, but the reason is definitely there. She meets the Wadsworth family, an odd bunch of ladies consisting of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman) and her two daughters, Alba (Susanne Zenor), a suspiciously happy girl (at first) who gives tennis lessons in the afternoon, and Germaine, who looks like an Elvira knockoff with a devious glare that sets your nerves on end the moment you see her. She obsessively cleans all day (and occasionally does TV commercials). But when it's time for Ann to meet her client though, the weirdness picks up pace.
Ann's client is a grown man who is completely infantile, sleeps in a giant crib, sucks on a pacifier, can only utter the occasional gaga and googoo, and is always simply referred to as "Baby". Although Ann seems taken aback by this, she doesn't shy away from it and takes a liking to him almost immediately. In fact, Ann starts to become a little bit obsessed with Baby, showing up several times a week, way more than the typical social worker who may drop in a mere three to four times in an entire year. She attempts to get Baby to improve beyond his infantile state by trying to get him to stand on his own, possibly even walk but is suspiciously held back from doing so by the entire family.
After one of Anns attempts at getting Baby to "grow up" a little, we find that behind closed doors, the entire family is keeping Baby in his infantile state by torturing him with cattle prods and other evil tactics when he shows any sign of improvement, therefore making damn sure that he is never anything more than a "baby". But Ann is smart and though she doesn't witness the abuse firsthand, she definitely has figured out what's going on. She tries to get Baby put into a hospital for the mentally delayed but the Wadsworth women are not interested. It seems that this family of women is pretty hateful towards men, especially Baby, mostly because the mother was deserted by a different husband after each child was born.
Ann knows that she can help Baby and threatens to use the Public Guardian Office to take Baby away from the abuse that he suffers from almost daily. At first, all three women are disgusted and dismissive of Ann's threats, declare Baby as theirs and throw her off the property, but later on, they think better of it because they realize that they don't want Baby's abuse to be discovered. So they hatch a plan to lure Ann over to their house for Baby's birthday party and somehow get rid of her. Ann shows up, but she's a smart cookie and is prepared for pretty much anything.
During this party, one that is clearly for adults on drugs, without a single child (or adult children) in sight, some drunk prick keeps hitting on Ann and she declares that she is happily married and isn't interested. In fact, Ann is asked about her husband several times throughout the movie and is intentionally vague, not really saying that he's dead, but won't verify his existence either.
At first, the family is nice to Ann and seems like they genuinely want to make up, but during an innocent game of darts, Ann's punch is spiked and she becomes intoxicated. When she begins staggering, they take her to the basement and tie her up, with the intention of doing away with her meddling ass entirely after the party ends. Unfortunately for them, they leave the basement door ajar and Baby makes his way down to where Ann is being held captive. Because Baby has by now grown rather fond of Ann, he helps (or at least watches) as she manages to escape. But she ain't leaving here alone, not until she gets what she came after. She bails out of the party, takes Baby with her, and slashes the tires in the family car before she leaves so they can't come after her. Told ya she was a smart cookie.
The Wadsworth women are defeated, Baby is finally in Ann's safeguard, but this chicken hasn't been cooked yet. Ann sends a picture of Baby to the Wadsworth family, all dressed in a suit, standing tall and looking all grown up. This enrages Baby's mother and his demented sisters so they decide that they must find Baby and get him back, at any cost.
They manage to locate where Ann lives and sneak into the house with knives like some kind of Manson Family hippies and prepare to kill Ann and bring Baby home. After Alba and Germaine go into the house but don't return, the mother grows impatient and enters the house herself, but when she does find her daughters, they've already been murdered. She doesn't have much time to mourn though before Ann comes out of the darkness with an ax and attacks the mother. They battle for a few minutes before Mrs. Wadsworth falls from the staircase and breaks both legs. Instead of killing her though, Ann has a much better plan. You see, Ann has been having a swimming pool built in the backyard, but it isn't quite completed yet. She drags the entire Wadsworth family out to the backyard and buries them right where the pool is being dug. At least the daughters are already dead, but Mama Wadsworth gets to be buried alive. As she begs for her life, she demands to know why Ann wanted her Baby so badly as to go to such measures to get him. She replies, "I plan to give him nothing but the deepest of love".
A few weeks pass, the swimming pool is completed, and Ann goes into what looks like a nursery that we assume has been intended for Baby, but all along there has been another adult baby there...Anns husband. He apparently has had some kind of head injury that has rendered him infantile and Ann has been planning this entire time to find him the most appropriate playmate, hence the lengths she was willing to go to in order to have Baby all to herself. Being a social worker, Ann has seen the improvement that can occur when delayed individuals, mostly children, can have when socialized with others like themselves.
The last scene is tremendously happy but has a really creepy vibe to it. Ann, her infantile husband, and Baby are all playing in the pool, one big happy family...with three dead bodies buried just beneath them. Ann was a woman with a plan, keenly executed from the very beginning.
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