381:. Her stage act includes a routine with a dwarf named Hercules. One night after the show, she invites Hercules into her dressing room for a drink. He declines the drink but starts to rub Lucy's neck and shoulders. Lucy feels uncomfortable but tries to pretend nothing is happening, until Hercules makes a sudden lunge for her breasts, causing her to scream out in shock. This alerts the stage manager Tommy, who rushes into the dressing room and sends Hercules unceremoniously on his way, then proceeds to make love to Lucy. Later as Lucy leaves the club she is confronted by the spurned and humiliated Hercules, who curses her with the words "You will have a baby ... a monster! An evil monster conceived inside your womb! As big as I am small and possessed by the devil himself!"
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is thrust around his neck and he is hauled into the air and hanged. His body is stuffed down a drain. The following day Lucy criss-crosses London in a frenzy trying to find her missing husband. Dr. Finch is summoned and pays an evening call to check on the baby and the distraught Lucy. After administering a powerful sedative to Lucy, he too hears strange noises. He unwisely steps out into the garden, and is decapitated with a spade (while still standing up). The trail of death continues as Lucy stumbles through the house in a groggy haze, pleading for her life to no avail as she is stabbed through the heart with a pair of scissors.
391:. Lucy goes into hospital to give birth to the baby she is expecting. It proves to be a protracted, dangerous and painful delivery as the baby is a hefty 12-pounder. The newborn infant is handed to Lucy, and seconds later she is sporting a slashed and bleeding cheek. "He scratched me! With his sharp nails!" she exclaims in horror to her obstetrician Dr. Finch, who calmly explains that the baby must have been alarmed at being held too tightly.
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Lucy meanwhile finds the burdens of motherhood too much to bear alone, and employs Jill
Fletcher, a nurse, to look after the baby. After a near-miss when the nurse's head is pulled underwater while bathing the baby, matters take a deadly turn when she takes him for a walk in the park. Reaching out from his pram, he pushes her with such force that she falls, cracks her head on a lakeside rock, falls unconscious into the water and is drowned.
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dislike to the child, and is later rewarded with a dead mouse in her cup of tea. Lucy's attempts at maternal bonding are fraught with problems. She is visited by her friend Mandy and is voicing her concerns when they are interrupted by a series of crashings from upstairs. To their horror, they find the baby in his cot but the nursery practically demolished.
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put forth by
Nickolds, while adding "the kid must have been a sound effects man in a previous incarnation because he makes noises like squad car sirens and stones banging around at empty garbage cans. He's also good at murdering everybody in the family even the family doctor, who is played by Donald
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One evening Gino plans a romantic night-in to take Lucy's mind off her woes. At the end of a successful evening, he goes to check on the baby, only to find the nursery empty, the window open and odd noises coming from the garden. Going out to investigate, he looks up into a tree, whereupon a noose
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Finally galvanized into action, Albana decides that she must perform an exorcism on the baby. Brandishing a crucifix at him and incanting in Latin, she bravely persists as the room shakes and the baby tears at her vestments. Meanwhile, at the strip club
Hercules is on stage, and begins to stagger
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Lucy pays a visit to Tommy at the strip club. She intimates that, given the timing of the birth, there is a chance the baby could be his. "Just ’cause you’ve got some freaky offspring you wanna pin it on me?" he asks. However his curiosity is aroused and he asks to see the "spooky kid". Once at
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Gino's sister Albana, a nun, arrives from her convent in Italy to visit her new nephew. Immediately aware that all is not well, she invites Gino to pray with her for the baby, which results in agonising screams from the nursery. Dr. Finch is consulted, and agrees to carry out a series of tests.
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Lucy and Gino bring the baby home and are welcomed by their efficient, no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs. Hyde. Things get off to a bad start when Mrs. Hyde goes to chuck the baby's chin, only to regret it. "The little devil bit me!" she says as she displays her crushed finger. She takes an instant
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the house he leans over to peer into the baby's cot, only to reel back with a smashed and bloody nose for his trouble. This temporarily pushes the baby up in Lucy's estimation and she gazes lovingly at him, until the face in the cot turns into that of
Hercules.
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529:("I keep getting these awful premonitions"), ludicrous acting ... and worst of all, Sasdy's direction. Almost every foot of film not concerned with the baby is travelogue at its most banal – extraneous shots of
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around in pain. Albana finally touches the crucifix to the baby's head, and his demons are cast out at the same time as
Hercules falls over dead in front of a stunned audience.
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Months pass and Lucy has left her stripping days behind, having moved up in the world via marriage to the wealthy
Italian Gino Carlesi and now comfortably settled in a grand
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horrors. Give it a wide berth." An
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293:. Released in the United States under the alternate title
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Time Out Film Guide, Penguin Books London, 1989, p.279
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661:"’The Devil within Her’ a rehash of forerunners"
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515:was initially a target of critical scorn.
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625:British Film Institute Collections Search
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827:Welcome to Blood City
811:Nothing but the Night
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313:demonically possessed
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184:1 June 1975
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891:Films about exorcism
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289:. It was written by
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926:1970s British films
896:Films set in London
795:Hands of the Ripper
539:Fortnum & Mason
478:as Police Inspector
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271:Peter Sasdy
267:horror film
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61:Produced by
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860:Categories
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238:95 minutes
221:1976-06-23
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160:Unicapital
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