THE BABY IN THE BASKET (2025)

3 stars

Shepka Productions/Flickering Myth. Digital (U.K. and U.S.) plus DVD in the U.K. 17th February

St Augustine’s 1944, during WWII. A nun out at night is chased by a wolf into the convent. She wards it off with her crucifix. She hasn’t spoken since. 

The nuns are gathered for a meal. There is talk of sheep that are really ‘ravenous wolves’. Sister Annalise (Annabelle Lanyon) is frightened by what she has seen. Annalise speaks of a darkness surrounding St Augustine’s.

Old boy Amos (Paul Barber) is the caretaker there and is training up his replacement Daniel (Nathan Shepka, who also co-directed with Andy Crane and came up with the story upon which Tom Joliffe’s script was based upon). They talk about the war. 

Sister Eleanor (Michaela Longden) is leaving in the morning. Sister Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne) visits her that evening to try and talk to her, but Eleanor is having some kind of crisis of faith. Next day Eleanor and Annalise leave for the mainland.

Praying in the chapel sister Agnes see what appears to be blood coming from the eyes of a statue of Jesus. Hearing a noise she finds an injured bird outside – which Daniel duly kills (bringing back memories of being in combat). That night Daniel spies on one of the nuns dancing naked in the moonlight! Got to get a bit of nudity in…

With a storm raging that night there is a knock at the door, Valerie (Elle O’Hara) finds a baby left on the doorstep. But who brought the child to this isolated outpost? Whilst Mother Superior (Maryam D’Abo) is rather enamoured with the little one, Agnes becomes agitated as she hears voices and odd things start to happen. ‘Devil’ she cries. She is convinced the baby is evil… which of course it is!

Having cover a couple of Shepka’s other films this is something of a change of pace to his previous work and is a more ambitious production. The real location adds value. A slowburn at the start it does eventually go full on demonic and dips into nunsploitation territory. The film well shot by Andy Crane, though the whole affair feels quite old fashioned – which may be the intent – and the music can be a bit melodramatic. Some tightening in the edit, especially in the first half, would have helped the pacing. 

Steve Kirkham