The Baby in the Basket (2025) Review

The Baby in the Basket (2025) Review

It’s 1944 and World War Two rages on. The sisters of St. Augustine’s, a convent on a remote Scottish island, are preparing for an incoming storm. One night a cloaked figure leaves a baby in a basket and disappears, never to be seen again.

The nuns take in the boy and agree to look after him until the storm passes when they will take the child to the mainland for permanent care. However, after a night under their watch, unsettling things begin to happen with the newest addition to the convent. Sister Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne) suspects the child is the spawn of Satan, causing her to be locked away for fear that she’s been driven mad by the isolation.

But increasingly strange occurrences lead the sisters to question their faith and everything they believe; they wonder has Sister Agnes fallen victim to the desolation of the remote island setting or was there really weight in her suspicions?

With my horror-genre hating partner away for a week I found myself with a chance to get up to speed on the wealth of flicks that had come my way for reviewing purposes. As always, there were going to be movies to review where the film’s poster art was often of far greater quality than the product it (mis)represented.

THE BABY IN THE BASKET too has terrific promotional poster, as you can see atop of this review, and as I am a sucker for good art, I plonked myself down to watch it first, again anticipating that the art would better the quality of the associated film, but on this occasion, I was wrong to think so.

Co-directed by Nathan Shepka (who also stars, often forgetting to wear a shirt) and Andy Crane from a script written by Tom Jolliffe (CINDERELLA’S REVENGE, RENEGADES), THE BABY IN THE BASKET is an assured and confidently crafted drama/horror that tickles the fancy and has you itching to see what the directing duo put their hands to next.

The acting is far better than you might expect from a lower-budget production and the dialogue and storytelling is top drawer stuff too. The pacing is leisurely and allows for the performances and situations to breathe and take form. If I have any niggle with THE BABY IN THE BASKET, it would be that the horror elements are not as strong as the human drama/interactions that precede it.

Check out the trailer here:

The Baby in the Basket will be available to own or rent on digital download in the UK and US and to own on DVD for the UK from 17th February

Pre-order your UK copy of the DVD on Amazon or HMV

Official Website