When expecting a new child anxieties run high. You worry about them being healthy. You worry about how they will turn out. Larry Cohen's creepy horror flick takes those anxieties and blows them out into terror. How would you you feel if your new baby was a savage monster?
Frank (John P. Ryan, BOUND) and Lenore Davis (Sharon Farrell, THE STUNT MAN) are an expecting couple. They already have an eight-year-old son Chris (Daniel Holzman), who is looking forward to being a big brother. Sitting in the waiting room with other expecting fathers, Frank seems the bastion of calm. But then screams echo down the halls. And he witnesses the blood bath in the delivery room where his wife is still strapped to the table. The baby has killed the doctors and nurses and fled the hospital.
Lt. Perkins (James Dixon, BLACK CAESAR) puts out an all points bulletin for the mutated child. The tragedy has created a media circus. Frank is fired from his publicity job and Lenore is dogged by reporters as her psyche becomes frayed. The Davises try to keep the horrible news from Chris by having him stay with friends. Frank becomes more and more angry at they way people look at him for having a killer child. He assures everyone that he'll put the fatal bullet in the monster if he has the chance.
Cohen creates a believable environment for the outlandish story. We sympathize with Frank and Lenore who have been trust into a horrible situation. It makes one wonder what makes up the parental bond. Can a parent love a killer child? This of course takes that idea to an extreme. Frank begins to feel like Dr. Frankenstein. Is he worried about his offspring or how his offspring reflects on him?
Who is responsible for this monstrosity? Could it have been drugs Lenore had been taking? The pharmaceutical companies don't want to culpable. Frank doesn't want to be blamed for a child who was literally born bad. Cohen seems to be implicating everyone.
Cohen has had an interesting career. He started with blaxploitation flicks and then moved into horror. He recently written some underrated thrillers like PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR. He's been stigmatized as a B-filmmaker.
While IT'S ALIVE! is the stuff of B-horror, it's more than some exploitation flick. The characters are fleshed out. Frank is a proud man who won't let this freak child bring him down. Lenore is beginning to crack under the pressure. She is conflicted between her motherly instincts and her repulsion for the clawed beast she gave birth too.
Cohen gives us only flashes of his mutant baby, which makes him all the more scary. What glimpses we do get of the deformed child were created by make-up legend Rick Baker. Cohen doesn't just go for shock and gore. He takes his time to develop his family before bringing in the murderous baby. He builds suspense as the baby seems to be lurking anywhere. Then he unnerves the audience with quick bursts of violence. Underlying it all is an unsettling score from none other than Bernard Herrmann, who scored PSYCHO and CITIZEN KANE. Together it's damn affective. Even though it's a film about a killer deformed baby, it's alive is a good way to describe this film.
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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
