It's Alive

It’s Alive (1974)

Dir. and written by Larry Cohen

Starring John P. Ryan, Sharon Ferrall, James Dixon, Guy Stockwell

Boy, is this not what I expected. I feel like when you hear the phrase “killer baby on the loose” in the plot description, you imagine something a little more light-hearted and schlocky than this. I mean, it sounds like a lazy SNL parody of a low-effort creature feature, all but guaranteed to feature a funny-looking monster baby puppet and an arch, campy tone to paper over the fact that everyone involved knows this is stupid trash.

Well, IT’S ALIVE does feature a funny-looking monster baby puppet, but its tone is anything but campy. Honest to god, this movie about a murderous mutant baby feels more like an Arthur Miller play than a GHOULIES sequel. It doesn’t quite dare to deny you the promised baby-fueled carnage, but its real interest is in exploring the guilt and shame and emotional conflict which arise in the little monster’s parents. Honestly I bet Richard Spencer’s parents watch this every night.

The parents in question here are Frank Davis (hard-working character actor John P. Ryan, who appeared in everything from FIVE EASY PIECES to DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN) and Lenore Davis (Sharon Farrell, THE STUNT MAN, LONE WOLF McQUADE), who we meet as they happily pack up to head over to the hospital for the birth of their second child. This much is expected, but you realize right away something is unusual about this film when, rather than jumping right into the carnage, the movie pauses and hangs out with Frank and a handful of other men in the waiting room, as they play cards, chat about life, and indulge in some semi-improvised sounding Larry Cohen-esque dialogue.

And of course, there’s your explanation right there: this is not just any junky old cheapie creature feature for the matinees, this is a Larry Cohen joint. It’s only his second feature film after the button-pushing suburban surrealist nightmare BONE, and the first of his films which would clearly establish his MO: cranking out schlocky b-grade genre pictures which deliver the expected exploitation goodies you want, but also aspire to more interesting plots and more nuanced performances than anyone could reasonably expect. Sometimes those two goals feel a bit disconnected from each other (Michael Moriarty’s stunning method acting masterpiece in Q: THE WINGED SERPENT is a marvel, but it’s hard not not notice it has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the ostensible plot), but here, they seem a bit more meaningfully linked. We get the standard stalk-and-slash kill sequences (often from the baby’s POV, making this feel entirely more like a slasher than any movie with a mutant baby puppet ought to), but mostly we get the parents, sitting around at home with the police, trying to deal with this insane nightmare which has so unexpectedly descended upon them.

Is this where socialized health care has brought us?!

Lenore seems like she’s experiencing some kind of dissociative break from reality, puttering about with a big fake smile and seeming for all the world like she must be hiding some sinister secret (she’s not, it’s just a weird performance which I guess is meant to highlight the mental strain she’s under). Honestly I’m not sure Farrell’s performance is communicative enough of what she’s actually thinking to be effective in helping the audience understand her, but at least it’s vivid. But Frank is in denial too. Literally, in fact: he denies the baby is even his, in another move that I initially took as evidence that the Davises are hiding some sort of evil secret. But no, they’re not; this is just a random, inconceivably cruel blow which has been dealt to them for no reason, and they’re trying to cope with the fact that their child is A) a mutant, B) a murderer, and C) about to be hunted down and shot by the police like a wild dog, and that’s if they’re lucky enough to find him before he kills again. If Lenore’s reaction is to try and deny the whole thing, Frank’s reaction is to deny that he cares. But of course he does; like Victor Frankenstein, he’s trying to dodge responsibility for the tormented life he brought into this world, and the movie’s main defining conflict is whether or not he’s going to be able to come to terms with that fact before it’s too late.

And there’s no avoiding these topics; for better or worse, they’re really what the movie is about. Hell, the movie is so serious about this shit it even got Bernard Herrmann (THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, PSYCHO, CITIZEN feckin’ KANE!) to do the moody, dread-soaked score. Probably not a worthwhile expense if your plan is to just throw a plastic baby with fangs at some screaming actors. These are complicated, adult emotions, and they’re self-evidently what Cohen builds his film around. The acting is perhaps a little more opaque than it ought to be with such an emphasis on the parents’ emotional states, but both actors try hard, and both come up with something that feels, if not exactly comprehensible, at least prickly and alive. Which is good, because I cannot in good conscience say that the actual The Alive of IT’S ALIVE feels very alive. The makeup (looks like it was part puppet, part child-in-suit) is not a disaster, but it’s a silly design (big googly eyes and two wall-eyed fangs), and the kill scenes, which mostly follow the baby’s perspective as it leaps around weightlessly like it’s in CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, are both way too cheesy to take seriously and a little light on either baby puppet or noteworthy gore to make up for it in fun.

I think this image may be from one of the sequels, but you get the idea.

So the emotional angle is what you’re left with -- a pretty dangerous strategy in a killer baby picture. Personally, I found the movie’s sweaty, feverish examination of these repressed early 70’s parents trying to find some comfort in lying to themselves to be interesting enough to carry through, but your mileage may vary. I certainly wouldn’t argue with anyone who objected to the movie on the grounds that a killer baby movie should have more killer baby in it. That’s certainly the easier hook, and I’m sure the 2009 remake goes more in that direction* (though presumably with an even more direly grim tone and a bunch of shiny pretty 30-somethings, since it’s a 2009 remake). But this is an interesting way to go, too. In the end that probably adds up to a movie which is more interesting than good, but hey, it is interesting, and that’s a lot more than one could reasonably expect from a movie called IT’S ALIVE.

P.S: Now that I think about it, IT’S ALIVE, which deals with parents feeling responsible for a murderous son they can’t control, feels like an interesting companion piece to the Cohen’s next movie, GOD TOLD ME TO, which deal with adults who have to decide what to do when a murderous Jesus instructs them to kill. One is about the responsibility of the person in charge when their underlings go rogue and turn violent, the other is about the responsibility of an underling when the person in charge pressures them to act violently. I think he should do a third one from God’s perspective when humans pray to him to kill other people.

*It sounds pretty different and more from the perspective of the mother, which is definitely a fresh take on this material, but I’m not convinced. Vern liked it, though.

No, seriously, you should "save your screams until you see it's face" because you're probably going to feel like a jackass in retrospect if you screamed and then saw how lame this thing looks.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2017 CHECKLIST!

The Discreet Charm of the Killing Spree

TAGLINE	There’s Only One Thing Wrong With The Davis Baby -- IT’S ALIVE.
TITLE ACCURACY	Well, that title is true for literally any movie with living creatures in it, but sure.
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	No
SEQUEL?	Yes, followed by IT LIVES AGAIN (reincarnation movie? Haven’t seen it) and the magnificently titled IT’S ALIVE III: THE ISLAND OF THE ALIVE. Still waiting for that LOOK WHO’S TALKING crossover
REMAKE?	Yes, in 2009
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	USA
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Creature feature, parental horror
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	None
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	Larry Cohen is probably more a general B-movie icon than specifically a horror one, but we’ll count him. Certainly, though Bernard Herrmann is a horror icon.
NUDITY?	No. The baby is nude, I guess, but it’s pretty tastefully shot.
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	No
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	The dad uses a cat to poke his son, which is weird, but the cat seems down with it
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	none
POSSESSION?	no
CREEPY DOLLS?	none
EVIL CULT?	no
MADNESS?	No. Yes?
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	No
VOYEURISM?	Killer baby-vision!
MORAL OF THE STORY	Don’t have kids.