From the first shots of “The Baby” you can feel a whisper of madness, as if the camera were peering through a crack in the soul. The corridor to the nursery is lit by an unnaturally warm light, but at the center is him: a man trapped in a grotesque baby suit, crying a strangled and inarticulate moan, clinging to wooden bars like an anchor of despair.

The protagonist, Ann (Anjanette Comer), is dragged into this ghostly asylum of horrors with the lightness of a breeze, but here her smile cracks. The walls, covered in peeling wallpaper, seem to pulsate with visionary memories: muffled voices, ghostly laughter, the cries of unborn children. Gerald Fried’s music becomes an obsessive whisper, the ticking of a clock marking the time of a corrupt childhood, suspending Ann in a limbo where rationality vanishes.

Every scene is a low blow to the sense of security: a dirty baby bottle left on the floor, rattles that jingle without anyone touching them, the face of “Baby” that becomes living flesh in a distorted grin. Ted Post’s direction gives no respite: the camera insinuates itself between the bars, holding the viewer’s breath, forcing him to share the claustrophobia of those locked in a perverse game. “The Baby” is not just a film, it is a nightmare that crawls behind your neck, whispering that nothing – not even the most innocent of nurseries – can keep you safe from the shadows of the forbidden.