evanston_dad There are some interesting and even somewhat ambitious (for its genre) ideas buried in the screenplay for "It's Alive," a mutant killer baby movie from 1974, but everything about the film is so poorly executed that the ideas don't get a chance to go anywhere.Those ideas include the anxiety and loss of control that come with having a newborn baby; the disappointment parents can feel when their children don't live up to their own preconceived expectations; the rift that children can create between husbands and wives; and the general responsibility husbands and fathers feel to "fix" whatever is wrong with their families. The film reminded me a tiny bit of David Lynch's "Eraserhead": in both, a literal monster exists as a stand in for all of the psychological angst that comes with bringing a child into the world. But "It's Alive" is very poorly directed, so it's not at all scary, and, though it elicits a chuckle once in a while for how stupid it is, it's not really bad enough to land into "so bad it's good" territory either. Mostly, the audience spends its time trying to get a glimpse of this killer baby, which it never really sees in any detail (probably a wise decision on the part of the filmmakers).Grade: C-

TheBlueHairedLawyer A pregnant couple (well, the wife, anyway) have a baby in a hospital while leaving their son babysat by their friend. While the wife is in labor, the husband discusses with a group of other men the way urban cities have all kinds of pollutants in the air, water and food... as it turns out in this hilarious yet creepy old b-movie, the baby has been mutated somehow and kills when it gets scared, from the nurses in the delivery room to the family cat. Only the father can seek out his child and accept it despite its unnatural appearance.I think what I liked most about this movie is towards the end, when the father rescues the child. I didn't appreciate the environmental propaganda message behind the movie, and It's Alive has its flaws, but hey, what low-budget horror movie doesn't? That's what makes them so much fun to watch! The acting was fairly decent and the soundtrack was pretty good, all in all it's a great little horror movie.

bkoganbing All is happy in the Davis household as parents John P. Ryan and Sharon Farrell are expecting the arrival of a new baby. But after a difficult labor Farrell gives birth to something out of Alien. It kills the delivery team in the hospital leaving mother alive, but shattered beyond belief and not knowing really what's going on. A beautiful Bernard Hermann score is really wasted on a cheap horror exploitation flick that spawned to sequels itself. Although Farrell as the mother should by all accounts be the protective one even though this thing which we never quite see, it is Davis as the father who tries to save it in the end. Even though Davis is only the father in the sense that Joseph is the listed father on the birth certificate in the Nazareth Hall of Records. In fact we're never really sure what caused Farrell to bring this into the world.Fans of gory horror films will love It's Alive, not sure how others will take it.

BA_Harrison Expectant parents Frank (John P. Ryan) and Lenore (Sharon Farrell) get the shock of their lives when their new baby turns out to be a hideous mutant, one that kills whenever it feels threatened. Fleeing the hospital, having massacred the entire delivery room staff only seconds after its birth, the savage infant roams Los Angeles, hunted by the police and its own father.Although writer/director Cohen's script flirts with ecological/medical issues, briefly suggesting that either pollution or untested drugs may be the cause of the mutation and questioning the morality of abortion, these interesting plot points are quickly pushed aside in favour of Frank's growing psychological turmoil and the mounting police search for the monstrous child.The former is handled pretty well, John P. Ryan giving a commendable performance as the initially belligerent father who ultimately tries to save his new son, but the pursuit of the creature is very tedious—unimaginative, repetitive, and lacking in general outrageousness and gore, with effects genius Rick Baker's mutant baby frustratingly kept hidden in the shadows for the majority of the film.