ThiefHott Too much of everything

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Sam Panico The TV commercial for It's Alive terrified me. The music, the slowly turning bassinet, the fact that a demon baby was inside - it was too much for my child brain to handle. I would cover my ears and yell every single time I saw it. The power and memory and latent fear for this thirty seconds created stayed with me for decades, ensuring that I would never watch this film. Until now. Frank and Lenore Davis are excitedly expecting the birth of their second child. They've been waiting for years and properly planned the child's birth, with Lenore using birth control pills until the time was right. However, their infant is a monster, a deformed creature with fangs and claws that is so horrifying, one of the doctors instantly tries to suffocate it. The baby kills the team who delivered it before escaping, leaving a crying Lenore and frightened Frank.The baby goes on a murderous rampage while Frank denies that the child is his, as a parallel is made to Frankenstein and how Dr. Frankenstein abandoned his creation. It turns out that the birth control drugs Lenore was on may have caused the mutation. To protect their bottom line, they want the child destroyed.The baby finds its way home, where Lenore embraces her child. Their first son, Chris, becomes homesick (he'd been staying with Charley, a family friend) and returns home, where he meets his sibling and promises to protect him. Frank discovers that the child is being hidden and shoots at it, but the baby escapes and kills Charley.The police and Frank track the child to the sewer, where the father realizes that the beast is his flesh and blood. Hiding the baby in his coat, Frank tries to escape, but he's caught by the police. Then, his child leaps from his arms to kill the pharmaceutical company representative who is with the cops. The police open fire, killing the child and the man who he is attacking.As the police take the Davis family home, we learn that another deformed child has been born in Seattle.When Larry Cohen completed the film, he learned that the executives who had produced the film were all gone. It's Alive got a paltry one week run in Chicago and a limited release. Three years later, after that team of executives were replaced, Cohen convinced Warner Brothers to re-release the film with the ad campaign featured above, leading to a successful run.It's Alive preys on our worst fears - that our children will grow to become monsters. However, Cohen takes it a step further. These children instantly are monstrous killers.Two sequels - It Lives Again and It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive - followed, as well as a remake. The original - shot at the same time as Hell Up in Harlem by a crew that was doing day and night shoots 7 days a week - is an impressive film. Like all Cohen's work, the idea is stronger than the budget and the final product looks so much better than the dollars it cost to create would suggest.

esotericbonanza A fantastically focused and engaged socio-horror film from the last golden age of the 1970s. Anchored around a most committed and persuasive performance from John Ryan and Larry Cohen's empathetic and savvy direction, It's Alive might display some raggedness and lapses in style, but it more than makes up for this with searing intelligence, sharp and sad gallows humour and a beating heart on the side of the ostracized and ridiculed. A fine example of what genre movies can really do.

audiohead22 I was too young to see this when it came out but vividly remember the ads and was very intrigued at the time. I'm so glad it was R-Rated and had to wait to see it. It's one of the worst horror movies ever! The acting was truly awful. The story is pathetic in every way, from the characters, to the plot development and especially the thrill factor. There's zero suspense, very little gore and even the attack scenes didn't raise my pulse one beat. It also completely lacked the proper amount of "cheese" for a good 'B' Film. Don't waste the 91 minutes of your life on this piece of junk. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities about this movie whatsoever!

Paul Andrews It's Alive is set in Los Angeles where publicity executive Frank Davies (John Ryan) & his wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) are expecting their second child, Lenore goes into labour & Frank drives her to the hospital to give birth. While waiting in a hallway outside the delivery room Frank sees a nurse stagger towards him & collapse on the floor, Frank rushes into the delivery room & sees all the doctor's & nurses slaughtered while his wife Lenore is in hysterics. The police are called & it soon becomes obvious that Lenore gave birth to some mutant killer baby that is now on the loose in Los Angeles killing anyone it comes across. Frank is fired from his job & he becomes determined to track the monster baby down & kill it...Written, produced & directed by Larry Cohen this killer baby film was a big international hit at the time of release & Cohen went on to make a strong name for himself in the sci-fi horror genre, a surprisingly deep film It's Alive stands up pretty well & is still moderately effective even now some thirty five years after it was initially released. The script by Cohne is pretty witty & has fairly rich concept's floating about like the idea that contraceptive pills my be responsible for the mutant baby, the part the press plays in hounding the Davis family, the way their friends & workers react to them, the scandal & how it's reported, the police line, the idea that the mutant baby must be killed could be seen as a pro abortion stance but the other theme of contraceptive pills being responsible for the mutant baby suggest otherwise & the whole issue of overriding maternal instinct comes into play at the end. Cohen's script juggles the ideas & themes quite well giving a chance for the character's to breathe, the mutant baby isn't seen that often but despite a 90 minute duration It's Alive maintains ones interest very well. There are some nice speeches, some witty dialogue, good character's & a initially simple sounding plot that does have more going on than you may think. Of course there are moments that don't quite work, the police seem to be far too quick to believe that a mutant baby is going around killing people (no-one even saw it, or at least saw it & lived to talk about it) & I have no idea how a days old baby would know or even goes about finding where it's parents lived or even being able to recognise them.Amazingly It's Alive was given a PG rating in the US when originally released & is pretty strong stuff for such a tame rating, there's a fair amount of blood & death although actual gore is low. The film looks nice enough if a little garish by today's tastes, the opening scenes has what appears to be beams of torch light darting all over the lace which I assume is meant to be sperm. The climax in the sewers is pretty cool with scenes only illuminated with the red flashing police car lights. The mutant baby itself was made by Rick Baker & is barely glimpsed, some may say it's more effective when you don't see that much but one suspects the brief flashes & seldom seen baby is down to a poor looking effect rather than any artistic decision.Shot on a very low budget the photography is a bit random at times, the picture can be very dark & the editing is very choppy in certain scenes but the strong narrative help overcome minor technical inadequacies. Regular Hitchcock composer Bernard Hermann provides a rousing score in what was his last film before he died. The acting is very solid, John Ryan is great as the insanely grinning, gum chewing parent who wants the baby dead because somehow it's part of him rather than concern for the many victims.It's Alive is a well rounded little exploitation film that has a surprisingly deep script, it brings issues up & raises good moral questions it's character's have to answer which we can relate too in certain ways. Followed by two sequels, It Lives Again (1978) & It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) & was remade as It's Alive (2008).