Customer Reviews

It's Alive

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

The original 1974 version was nothing to write home about and this movie is beyond that! I wound up fast forwarding through the majority of this movie! How in the world is a new born baby capable of throwing people around like the Hulk???? Are you kidding me!? This was one of the worst movies I've seen in a while! Don't waste your time!

Trust me when I say this movie is bad. The production was terrible. The people talking was low and the music was loud. The acting isn't worth anything and the ending was not only open-ended, it didn't make much sense. Everything that can be wrong with a movie is in this one. Don't be fooled because you recognize the name. This isn't worth your time.

Oh, yeah, I know why, because the majority of horror cinema offerings, when they're not sequels, are friggin' remakes! Right. That's the real reason why horror remakes make dough. They get the mainstream simps to see them as if they were new and they get us real horror buffs to see them because we're so damn hungry for horror that we run out of food. Well, here we are with It's Alive 2009. Who in the hell would've thought that the 1972 Larry Cohen cheapie of the same name would be worthy of a remake over thirty years later? NO ONE! But here it is direct to video ready to be snatched up by the unsuspecting horror geek. I even had decent to high hopes for this remake seeing that Larry Cohen, the director and writer of the original(as well as Q: The Winged Serpent, Bone, God Told Me To, The Stuff), was involved in its screenplay. But, then there's two other names listed after his. Don't know much about this project honestly so I can't speculate on what his and the other screenwriter's contributions were, but I can tell we have a real mess of a horror film on our hands.

Lets talk first about the good things this remake does before we get to the real horror. They slanted the angle of the story from the original. Sure, they did the usual 'youthing' up of the main characters Frank Davis(James Murray) and Lorna(Bijou Phillips), but they also changed the main plot thrust. In the original film as soon as the mutant baby is born he's gone and everyone is out to find him. Father Frank has a bond with the mutant tot and tries to protect him despite the fact that his son is a monsterous killer. In this remake they scaled the story down. It mostly takes place in a secluded country home in New Mexico. Our newly young couple are barely out of college and lets say the pregnancy wasn't planned. The slant now is how mother Lorna is losing her mind and pulling a Norman Bates for her monster child. There's great material to be mined here regarding post-pardem syndrome and what a mother's love really is, but I assure you you won't find any of that culled in this film--but that's a negative and we'll save that for the next paragraph. Secondly, the only other good thing about this film, is Nicholas Pike's(Sleepwalkers, The Stand) score. It's good and only slightly nostalgic for the original's Bernard Herman score. That's it.

Like I mentioned, the story has so much room for satire and parable that I don't get why the filmmakers settled for doing a typical 'little critter' sneaks up with the camera lense as its point of view thing. Mutant baby kills, Lorna cleans and hides it up. Rinse and repeat for about an hour. Then we get to our climax where two cops and our dimwitted Frank finally realize something weird is going on with Lorna and her not too oftenly seen baby. That's the other thing, we never see the baby--human or mutant. I'm not really sure how this thing works, honestly. It's born and seen as a normal baby. Frank looks at his son as a normal kid. But, the thing has claws and razor sharp teeth when it attacks to feed. So, what's the deal? Does the baby shape shift into a monster or what? I suppose so or the character of Frank may get the award for the worst father of the entire existance of fathers. The movie never gives you any visual information in this regard so I'm just making huge assumptions, assuming that the filmmakers don't think the viewer's stupid enough to believe that Frank never notices his son's claws or sharp teeth. I could be wrong. In the original film we only saw glimpses of the baby and when we did it was a combination of a puppet and make up effect both created by the legendary Rick Baker(American Werewolf In London, Gorillas in the Mist, Harry and the Hendersons). The remake doesn't show much of the baby either, actually this remake shows it even less then the original, but when it does appear in full mutant mode it is completely CGI, and not very convincing. We get glimpses of CGI claws, CGI snarling faces and body parts, but only in flashes and just long enough to not be convincing still. Worst of all is the creature design, what little you get to see of it, is really lame. The mutant baby in this film resembles the green toilet dwelling Ghoulie but pink. He's laughable. At least in the original the creature's visage was genuinely eerie and kind of creepy.

The acting is all foregettable. Bijou Phillips does the best transitioning she can muster from normal Grad student, to fumbling mother, to complete nutcase, but the hack script never writes her any convincing bits of pathos to peform the transitions. Unless, I missed soemthing, at the end when all the bodies are found, the cops have arrived, mommy Lorna has lost it, and Frank is being questioned in his own basement for the murders of missing psycholigists and others, Frank seems to know his baby is killing everyone. How? He comes home to find his wife rocking in a chair in the baby's room. The baby is missing, and in the crib is mutilated remains and he spots a hole in the wall. Up until this point in the film Frank hasn't even noticed anything funny going on(though, what idiot wouldn't notice how strange his wife is acting?). When he finds the corpses in his basement and the sheriff corners him, he just suddenly knows his baby is a super strengthed, monster, mutant kid. Huh? Did I miss something? Could this script be this lazily and sloppily written or is there some deleted scenes I'm not aware of? Don't know, and really don't care. I doubt it would change my opinion of this film that substantially. In the original both parents were conflicted and felt very real. In this remake Frank seems like a dimwitt and the script has Lorna playing the nutty card way too early.

Listen, the bottom line is the original is a grindhouse classic. It has satirical undertones, regarding what caused the Davis baby mutation, and a creepy creature. It plays with the typical Frankenstein's monster convention of what the creator owes the creations, and how far paternal love is willing to go. This remake has a nugget of that in it with the mother character and her unflinching committment to protecting her son's secret, but it's all written and played as if she is only doing it because she has lost her mind. Though, I give this remake some kudos for not giving an over blown back story to the mutant baby(Leatherface has a skin condition--WAH, Michael Myers came from poor abusive red knecks--WAH, Jason misses his mommy--WAH). The remake keeps the cause of the mutation in the scientific, pseudo-science would be more accurate, realm by alluding to the mutation being caused by experimental drugs taken by Lorna to inspire a miscarriage. It's a brief scene and seems stuffed into the film just for the giggles of it. This flick is a mess. There's some good ideas floating around but nothing of interest was done with any of them. NOTHING IN THIS FILM MAKES IT EVIDENT WHY THE ORIGINAL WAS WORTH REMAKING. Why even remake this film? Is the title "It's Alive" even a name brand? Is it name brand enough to warrant renting or purchasing a ticket based on it? Have any of you people even seen the film that this one is a remake of? Do any of you know who Larry Cohen is? Doesn't matter. Cheap production. Cheap motivations. All equaling a take the money and run remake---which is a term I am now inventing to replace the old one, Take the money and run sequel. BLECH!

That was the question posed in the original movies: was this a baby or a monster? In the original movies they went out of their way to make them monsters, no mistake. In this movie they make it a 'baby' rarely seen. How scary is that? Where are the fangs, the claws, and that horrible noise they made? Gone. Instead, we get a father who's barely involved, a mother who abruptly goes mad (in an unconvincing manner), and a little brother who watches his cat disappear but never bothers to mention it to anyone! Hello, something under my bed swiped my cat!
What was poignant in the original, who was responsible for this monster, the parents or nature, was sadly lacking in this pathetic little remake.
As others have mentioned, was it necessary to remake the original? No. Did they attempt to make this movie better than the first 3? No. Have we been duped? Yes. Did we waste our money? Oh, yeah. Should we warn people of impending gloom should they bother buying this mess-terpiece? At the very least.
Consider yourself warned.
I did, however, love the DVD cover. But it's a trap!

It's Alive (Josef Rusnak, 2008)

To be fair, I knew going in that the recent Hollywood big-budget remake of It's Alive was going to suck. After all, look at all of the strikes it had against it.
1. First and foremost, it's a Hollywood big-budget remake of an American horror movie that went straight to DVD. If that doesn't set alarm bells off in your head in a culture where 80% of the horror films coming out of Hollywood are remakes/reboots/sequels, you're not paying attention.
2. Stars Bijou Phillips, who was always supposed to be the next big thing after Almost Famous and Bully and never made it (her biggest film since: Havoc). In my opinion, it's because she has one of the most annoying voices in all of Hollywood. As the lead, she gets to use it a lot here. Be warned.
3. Directed by Josef Rusnak. If that name doesn't mean anything to you, you have forgotten The Thirteenth Floor, a 1999 sci-fi film so badly received it came close to killing the careers of everyone involved. Rusnak didn't direct again until 2007 (his biggest film since: The Art of War II).
4. The largest film anyone save Phillips in the principal cast had worked on before this movie was Nanny McPhee.
5. Special effects were by Ivo Jivkov. Another name you don't know. Among his work is The Fourth Kind, the 2008 Day of the Dead remake, Mega Snake, the 2006 bomb The Black Dahlia, and Mansquito. And yes, those are the best films to his credit at IMDB.
All of which is forgivable in some films, of course. But the movie takes a turn straight into unforgivable territory about two-thirds of the way through, when the script suddenly makes very clear that it's got a not-at-all buried anti-RU486 message inherent in it. Yep, that's "liberal Hollywood" for you, right there. If you even think you may be the slightest bit pro-choice, this movie should outrage you beyond belief. Everyone else, you may enjoy it if you can get past Bijou Phillips' voice. (zero)

Honestly... this was one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. A monster infant that feeds on the flesh of adults with razor sharp teeth and what appears to be lightning speed.

Nothing of interest even happend in this movie until the last 15 minutes, then it just got so far-fetched it was hard to watch. The only cool thing about this movie was the picture on the case.

Stay away from this one

Another horror classic, remade and RUINED!!!! This movie is so bad i am just going to pretend it was never made. They should have left it alone. There was nothing wrong with the original. No wonder it never got to the theaters. Terrible Terrible JUNK!

I received my copy of "It's Alive" yesterday, and watched it last night, alone, at midnight. I was able to sleep soundly afterwards. While it had it's moments, it was certainly no frightfest.

First, the differences...

This time around, the baby looks totally normal (Or does he? More on this in a bit). So, after the slaughter in the delivery room, the police have no suspect They certainly have no cause to think that the newborn shivering on it's mother's stomach did it, where in the first film it was quite evident since the umbilical cord was chewed through and the baby was GONE. This version is also told from Lenore's viewpoint, whereas the first film focused on the father, Frank, and his hunt for the mutant infant. Frank is pretty much reduced to stumbling around cluelessly in this version, watching Lenore slowly going psycho (with "becoming more withdrawn and somber" passing for psychosis). Chris, who was the couple's older son in the original, has been changed to Frank's younger, parapalegic brother. Making him wheelchair bound seems rather pointless, as it's never used as a plot device (unless you count the requisite "helpless? victim alone" scene). Like the original it also has a shocking ending, although this time it's VERY dark.

What went wrong? Well, the main fault lies with the baby himself (who is actually given a name this time, Daniel). Apparently, he looks normal enough that Frank never questions anything, yet we know that Daniel possesses long, sharp fingernails (seen in a breastfeeding scene) and a MOUTHFUL of sharp, jagged teeth (seen in a VERY brief climactic close-up). Does he change form? Is he gradually mutating as he grows? This is never explained. Perhaps Lenore kept trimming his nails, and Frank never saw Daniel with his mouth open, I dunno. All we're told is that he had a "growth spurt", and is ready to be born at the 6 month mark (he
"doubled in size" and is "a big baby"). The cause this time is half-heartedly explained as a botched abortion attempt by Lenore via pills. In the original, the baby attacked when it was scared. This time, Daniel is simply "hungry". Even with a fridge FULL of breast milk, and all the wild animals (and, in a throwback to the original, family pets) he can eat, he still resorts to attacking hapless people. Again, never really explained. Then there's the spotty CGI; Daniel has a head full of brown hair, then, he's bald. Then, back to hair, then bald. As if the CGI crew weren't even talking to each other during production ("Oh, he's supposed to have hair? We made him bald. Oh well."). I think even his clothes switch from one scene to the next (but then, who can really notice in split-second glimpses?). And in the "big reveal" at the end, Daniel looks like a cross between a Gremlin, and Chucky from "Child's Play". The freaky, muscular, big-eyed, pug-nosed, three-fingered design of the truly mutant baby in the original film haunts me to this day; this time, he just comes across as a fast, REALLY mad baby, with a severe need to see a dentist. You don't really see the ending coming, which is a nice twist, but then, as you're waiting for the wind-down and closure, the film just suddenly ends, as if they ran out of script. Or money. Which, along with the CGI gaffes, is probably why this never found a distributor, floated around in limbo for a year, and then went straight to DVD. Although it does have a few interesting moments going for it, maybe this "It's Alive" should have just stayed in limbo. Let's hope the "Poltergeist" remake fares better...although I'm not holding my breath.

I'm echoing another reviewer here when I ask, "WHY do I keep watching these wretched remakes?!" This is a terrible, terrible film. The original is a masterpiece next to this. AVOID.

This whole thing is laughably stupid in every possible way, from the bad acting to the cheesy evil baby effects to the lack of a real explanation for the evil baby, to the way the hospital never really deals with the mass murder in the birthing room, and so on.