In this tedious and lifeless remake of Larry Cohen's 1974 campy horror classic pregnant Lenore delivers the baby.During the birth all the doctors and nurses in the operating room are viciously killed by the baby.It seems that her child is thirsty for human and animal blood.This "It's Alive" remake is downright silly and absurd.The film fails to generate even the smallest amount of tension.The killings are mediocre and the CGI effects are cheesy and unconvincing.However I enjoyed the performance of Bijou Philips,because her character has just enough depth to convey at least some of the conflicting emotions between a protective mother and someone frightened for their life.4 out of 10.Watch "Grace" or "Baby Blues" instead.
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claudio_carvalho6 September 2010The pregnant college student Lenore Harker (Bijou Phillips) leaves the college before the end of the semester to move to the isolated house in Larkspur of her boyfriend, the architect Frank Davis (James Murray). When Lenore is ready to deliver the baby, they drive to the hospital. In the surgery room, the two doctors and the two nurses are found slaughtered and Lenore and the baby are found covered of blood. When Lenore is released, the family returns to Frank's house. Sooner Lenore discovers that her son is a mutant monster hunger for flesh and blood and she protects him hiding his murders.
"It's Alive" is a stupid remake of the 1974 movie. The story is too imbecile and predictable without any surprise. There is no fun, no scare, only gore and this film does not deserve spending time writing a review. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "Anjo Maldito" ("Damned Angel") -
Rathko24 January 2010I understand IMDb's ten line minimum for posted reviews, but there are times when ten lines are hard to fill. There are even those times when ten words are pretty tough. This terrible remake of Larry Cohen's minor-classic of 1974 is one such occasion. It is pure tripe and little more really needs to be said beyond a sincere admonition to avoid at all costs. But in the service of a minimum line count, I will add that it is typical Millennium fare - shot in Bulgaria with a multinational hodgepodge of cast and crew, working from an amateurish script for a director with no discernible talent. It never ceases to amaze me how so many people can have so little pride in what they do.
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Coventry28 February 2012This rather dumb, I even daresay downright imbecilic, flick is a prototypic example of why people righteously hate horror movie remakes. And yet, I started watching it with a very open mindset and actually hoped for a pleasant surprise. Why? Because, for once, it's not just another redundant remake of a bona fide genre classic that totally doesn't need an update version. Like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Friday the 13th", for example. Why should they be remade? The original "It's Alive", on the other hand, was an extremely low-budgeted and often clumsily put together obscure cult gem from the early 1970's! That's an ideal film to bring to the attention of wider horror audiences through a remake. Unfortunately, it turned out a total failure of a film, with an insubstantial script, a total lack of tension and atmosphere and embarrassing gore/splatter effects. Bijou Philips gives birth to a baby 'only a mother could love'. The offspring immediately slaughters all the hospital staff in the delivery room and, since it's so exceptionally large and overdeveloped, it also regularly needs extra snacks like psychiatrists, bimbo blond friends and stoner boyfriends. Mommy carefully cleans up the mess junior makes (and doesn't even seem to worry that much) and daddy doesn't seem to have clue of what's going on. The monster baby is mainly kept off-screen, maybe for the best, and all the CGI butchering effects are pathetic. "It's Alive" couldn't even scare an infant. The cute Bijou Philips tries hard to make her character plausible, but the script is simply too idiotic. Larry Cohen, writer/director of the original as well as numerous other cult classics, co-wrote the script of this inferior remake, strangely enough. Perhaps he deliberately sabotaged the whole thing, hoping people would take the effort to check out the original again instead. Good job, Larry, it worked!
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bigdarvick15 October 2009This is what bothered me throughout the film...it's location. We as the audience are supposed to believe this story takes place in New Mexico. Unfortunately, we're tipped off at the beginning of the film that it was shot in Bulgaria (where?)with a Bulgarian crew etc. This is when a film should save it's credits for the end of the movie. A few minutes into the flick, we are told via a caption, that the story takes place in New Mexico. Even if my eyes were shut tight during opening credits--I'd know in a heartbeat that the location isn't New Mexico. Instead, what we see is an Alamo style house on the edge of a Bulgarian forest with tall looming trees behind it. Are they kidding? I can understand saving money by shooting in Bulgaria(where?)but how could they expect us (in the USA) to believe that it was New Mexico? Why not say Oregon or some other geographically similar location? Instead, all we see are gray skies and obviously freezing cold outdoor shots with shivering actors. There are so many gaffes in this straight to DVD movie that it is incredibly distracting. We see shots of a pool at night with a pool cover on it, then, in the next shot, it's off. Steam rising out of this pool (cold in Bulgaria...where?) There were very few shots of the baby in it's monster guise and we as the audience, can't understand why no one can see what's up with this kid. The baby's father is never around and when he is, never seems to have a clue that this kid is a little monster.
The entire New Mexico police force consisted of 2 cops, both of which made Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes. They never ask for back up (they didn't have shoulder radios) even when being attacked by this 10 lb wunderkind. As a matter of fact these police were wearing generic uniforms with no insignia etc.
The acting was OK up until the mommy (played by Bijou Philips)started to think she was actually in a film that may get some notice and began to ham it up to the point of it being embarrassing.
I think that everyone associated with the remake of this camp classic should've watched the movie "Grace" if they wanted to see a terrifying movie about a demon child. That was a well done film--great dialog and acting, both subtle and scary to the point of making me squirm in my seat and giving me nightmares. Well, It's Alive gave me nightmares too. I dreamt that I wasted a $1.07 at Red Box. -
udar5517 October 2022"I would advise anybody who likes my film to cross the street and avoid seeing the new enchilada." - Larry Cohen
Nothing instills confidence in a remake more than the original filmmaker bashing the new version. Grad student Lenore Harker (Bijou Phillips) quits school in order to have her baby and live with her beau Frank Davis (James Murray) in an isolated house. Complications happen when she goes into labor at the six month mark and her doc mentions the baby has nearly doubled in size in just a few short months. Before you can scream, "It's alive!" the baby has massacred everyone except mom in the delivery room and the cops are on the case.
By no design of my own, this is the fourth film I've seen from Millennium Films in just over a week. I had no idea their remake game was so strong. And, like the earlier viewings, it completely fails to capture the shock value of the original or even update it appropriately. If there is any concept that could have thrived in a remake, it is this one as we've seen leaps in technology in the 25 years between the two films. According to the interview the above quote was taken from, Cohen supplied the filmmakers with an updated script for a new take on his 1974 horror film. Instead of heeding his advice, they said, "We're good" and rewrote it to make this dull take on the mutant baby classic. It is a total slog as Lenore slowly discovers her baby Daniel is a killer (thanks to some Plan B pills she took) as he quickly makes his way up the food chain from birds to cats to humans. My favorite bit is where a pushy police psychologist is attacked in his car. As he fastens his seatbelt, he goes "Ow!" and then raises up his hand to reveal three of his fingers have been bitten off. Ow? OW!? That was all you could muster when losing three of your left hand's digits? Like Day of the Dead (2008), Millennium shot this in Bulgaria and tried to pass it off as the United States. This time it is New Mexico and it results again in their horrid dubbing of the supporting cast (in addition to the terrible baby voice that Phillips has). Scott Coulter's Worldwide FX also provides the horrible digital baby and fake-looking blood and it is no match for Rick Baker's early creation. A dumb move in a series of dumb moves. How dumb are these filmmakers? They don't even have the brains to recreate the iconic "monster claw coming out of a baby cradle" artwork. I will give the film credit for a super downer ending, but by that point I had stopped caring. -
weronews13 February 2010Ultrasound won't detect any acting talent in this abysmal re-telling of a film that wasn't very good to begin with. Larry Cohen's original 1974 schlock-fest had gallons of artificial blood, a campy story and one very bad looking baby puppet. This modernized version offers Bulgaria as an unconvincing stand-in for New Mexico, gallons of artificial blood and cheesy looking CGI effects. And does it have to take itself so serious? Strictly for those who consider enduring eighty-three minutes of labor pains any fun. Larry Cohen's movie spawned two sequels (1978, 1987). Whatever is in the works for this afterbirth - let's hope for abortion.
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Heislegend1 November 2009It takes a lot for a movie to make me actually angry. And I don't just mean in a "holy crap, that was awful" kind of way. I mean for it to make me sit there with a face full of scowl for the whole thing. Yet It's Alive has accomplished that. To be fair, I should have known what I was getting into. There are very few homicidal baby movies that have ever been executed to even an acceptable degree.
There's really not much going on here. A girl takes a break from college to have a baby and weird stuff starts happening. Now this might be forgivable if...say...mommy and daddy had no clue what was going on. But mom knows damn well and seems totally cool with it. I understand most parents will forgive their children just about anything, but there's got to be a limit. So Bijou Phillips, who needs to pick a new, less ridiculous name, spend the whole movie ignoring the fact that her baby is evil incarnate and even enabling it from time to time. This (sort of) gets explained about 3/4 of the way through, but it's such an awful explanation and the movie so horrible that by that time you won't care.
There is nothing redeemable here. The acting is capable but still somehow annoying. The kill scenes are fun in an over the too kind of way, but there's not nearly enough of them to justify the rest of this trash. Ummm...they didn't kill any puppies? Is that something you can applaud a movie for? Seriously, I have trouble thinking of a single good thing to say about this film. I'm not going to whine about it being the worst movie ever, but I absolutely hated it it. -
poolandrews27 September 2010It's Alive is set in New Mexico where college student Lenore Harker (Bijou Phillips) & her boyfriend Frank Davis (James Murray) are expecting a baby boy, while taking a shower Lenore feels labour pains & know's that she is going to give birth. Frank rushes her to the hospital where Lenore is taken into the delivery room, some time later an orderly enters the delivery room & finds four of the medical team dead having been brutally torn to pieces while Lenore & her baby boy seem unhurt. The cops have no clues & Sergeant Perkins (Owen Teale) has no leads except Lenore who was under anaesthetic at the time, Lenore & Frank with their newborn baby son Daniel are allowed to go home but there's something not quite right with the young baby. Lenore finds Daniel eating dead animals & when she finds a dead body torn to pieces Lenore know's there's only one explanation but how could a young baby boy be a vicious killer...
Directed by Josef Rusnak this is a remake of the Larry Cohen written, produced & directed horror film It's Alive (1974) which was a considerable success at the time of release & spawned two sequels of it's own as well as this remake which Cohen himself co-wrote. I personally have no problems with remakes at all, the original film still exists so I don't see any issue whatsoever, while the original It's Alive was a good solid horror film that had a little bit of wit, black humour & intelligence the It's Alive remake is more bland but I did still quite like it for what it was. Predictable to appease to the teen horror film crowd the mother & father in this remake are pretty young teens rather than grown adults as in the original but you could say that the script deals with the pressures & problems of young parents which is a much, much bigger issue now in 2010 than it was back in 1974 so in a way the script has just been adjusted for a new generation & a new society where it's actually very relevant, issues of blind maternal love, abortion, premature birth & the emotional effects of caring for a newborn baby are touched upon but are never gone into with any great depth or intelligence. At only 80 minutes long It's Alive is short, very short & not that much happens really although it does have a few nice moments & the somewhat downbeat choice of ending was surprising although also welcome. The first twenty five minutes follows the original quite closely as a woman gives birth to a mutant baby that kills the medical team but instead of having the baby go on the run & being hunted down the mother tries to protect it & cover up for it's crimes in a decent twist on the original, having said that surely anyone finding their newborn baby eating dead animals & killing people would have a hard time loving it & protecting like Lenore does here.
Available in both 'R' rated & 'Unrated' versions I saw the Unrated cut which is gorier than than the original with better effects & attack scenes, slashed dead bodies are seen, severed limbs are shown, someone is ripped in half, there's lots of blood splatter & someone gets a tiny baby claw fist punched through their head. There's a bit of nudity as well, while being breast fed Damien bites his mother's nipple & draw's blood in another glaring sign something was wrong that Lenore chose to ignore. Surprisingly the mutant baby effects are extremely restrained & there's only ever one shot of it during the entire film, strangely there are no scenes of Daniel as a normal baby either as he is kept off screen for virtually the whole film. Don't let anyone tell you the original three It's Alive films are classic either, they are not with It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) easily the worst out of the four films, I should know I have now watched all four It's Alive films in the space of four days (yeah, my head hurts just thinking about it).
Filmed in Bulgaria the IMDb says It's Alive had a $10,000,000 budget which I don't believe for a second, there's no way this cost that much & if did have a budget that big it wouldn't have been shot in Bulgaria. The acting varies, the main cast do alright with Bijou Phillips quite good as the mother.
It's Alive the remake is a decent little horror film in it's own right actually, don't let anyone fool you that the original is some untouchable classic because it's not although I would still say it's a bit better than this remake overall. A good pace, nicely shot, there's some good gore & virtually no CGI computer effects work means It's Alive the remake actually turned out better than I had expected. -
sogkokou-110 October 2009I'l be very brief. Whoever is responsible for the screenplay of this atrocity should revise everything they know about the art of writing and take a few lessons in psychology (although I doubt that it would help) and all those who agreed to take part (in any sort of way) in the production of this feature are either intellectually challenged in a desperately tragic way or they are simply faced with minimum alternatives, if any altogether (they have my condolences in the latter occasion).
This crap (won't even call it a movie) defies human logic and it offends every intellectual progress achieved by the human kind. I simply wish that IMDb executives would implement a system of negative scoring. I believe my comment should be sufficiently emphatic even for the most sceptic reader. -
mxatt12 September 2009I watched this last night and thought it was a decent entry into the monster genre. Bijou Phillips plays a mother who gives birth to some sort of monster baby and realises it is a killer.
The acting was hit and miss, for the most part, Bijou was great, aside from some overacting whenever she found that the baby had done something. One thing did make me laugh though, because she is playing an expectant/new mother, she uses a breast double. This must be the first time Ms. Phillips has actually shied away from appearing nude in a film. The rest of the mostly British cast was OK, but some of them (namely Ty Glaser) seemed to be suffering from bad accent syndrome, and there was some slipping back into the natural accents. I thought that Raphael Coleman was quite good as the baby's wheelchair bound relative, considering that this appears to be only his second feature film.
The one piece of casting I couldn't buy was the sinister looking Owen Teale as a police officer. Perhaps it is because I last saw him in Torchwood as a cannibal killer, but no one can deny that there is something sinister and decidedly criminal about him, so it seems odd for him to be playing a policeman. Whenever Jack Ellis appeared on screen all I could see was Jim Fenner too (this was also the same when he played Liz McDonald's bit on the side in Coronation Street), so perhaps I've just typecast these actors as being sinister.
I think the film would have been better off had it been set in Britain because of all the British actors used. It just seemed odd to me to see them all in this supposedly American setting.
I was a bit confused by the main character as well. She is supposed to be a college student, but she appears to be at least 30 years old, so I wasn't sure whether she was supposed to be a mature student or just stupid.
The death scenes weren't very well done either, with characters being rushed at by some invisible force and left in a pool of blood. They all seemed to be the same too, which just got boring after a while.
This brings us on to the baby. Well, after being teased all the way through the film, we finally catch a glimpse of it near the end when it appears in a bin. The CGI used to animate it is dreadful, and it just ends up looking ridiculous. The only thing that looks worse is the CGI fire that comes around the baby's room near the end.
Having said all that, I enjoyed the film. There was a heartbreaking moment just before the baby's reveal where the father agonises over whether to kill his child and it begins to cry like a normal baby. The whole moral dilemma over whether to kill one's own child, especially as it is just a baby is not a nice position to have to be put in.
I'd say watch this film, because it is a decent entry into the straight to DVD market, and although it's no masterpiece, it's still worth a watch. -
Nemesis7293-127 June 2010Abysmal remake of Larry Cohen's '74 genre classic. The original started like a bat out of hell and kept going from there. It had genuine excitement, scares, tension, a logical script, and characters that behaved like rational, real people. In this abortion of a remake we have a film that is painfully slow and unpleasant (for the wrong reasons), like a snail with diarrhea. It even manages to make the delivery room massacre a lifeless non-event....btw, blood is OPAQUE not TRANSPARENT. It looks like the walls have been hosed down with cherry jelly. Every single change from the original is for the worse. Why add Frank's little brother? He serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever in the screenplay. He has no effect on any of the events in the film and just mopes aimlessly....and what purpose does the character being in a wheelchair serve??? Stupid. In the original the baby escapes from the delivery room and both parents are scared shitless of it....like real people would be. Here, the baby.....who now only looks monstrous at the moment of attack....curls up on it's mother's incised belly and goes to sleep. Stupid. The new Lenore knows that the baby is a monster, but wuvs him so vewy, vewy much that she just covers up the killings. Even mother love only goes so far. Stupid. The baby never attacks when his father and young uncle are around to notice anything. Bad writing AND Stupid. Tiny Bijou Phillips is obviously supposed to have been able to lug multiple bodies down the cellar steps and hide them....all by herself. Stupid. Out of nowhere....and for no discernible reason other that that it's the climax of the movie and they wanted the house dark....the baby suddenly knows how to shut off the electricity in the house. How would it possibly know how to do this and why would it logically want to??? Stupid!!! The movie is only 80 mins., but I could continue pointing out tangible stupidities for days. The baby from the original had a great design and you actually got to SEE it. This is not the case here because the 2 second "good look" you get at the little bastard's face at the climax is rendered in such astonishingly horrid CG that if it had been shown earlier the audience would have hyperventilated from hysterical laughter and mercifully missed any more of the movie. Phillips' decent performance and a nice, but derivative score by Nicholas Pike are the only faint bright spots on this celluloid tumor. I am appalled that Larry Cohen so much as dotted an "i" in this screenplay. He should be mortally ashamed. This "It's Alive" was born dead and rotting.
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e-dantes-weinfeld18 November 2009Even I have to leave comment regarding this movie. We just sat there with our jaws wide open thinking : "Is this for real or is this a student movie from 1st semester". The story is so retarded.My 3 year old nephew could have written a better story. I mean a disformed baby that eats human and animal flesh.....okay....could work....but not if your CGI looks like you bought it over ebay and the screewriter was so high on drugs he just wrote down anything for his next fix. Seriously......we laughed the whole time and the only time we where scared was whas when we accidentally hit the replay button after the rolling credits. If you want to see the possibly worst horror movie ever produced go and rent " it's alive". And don't forget to watch the director's interview. You will be pissing yourself how he actually sells the movie as one of the best of its genre. OMG. Enjoy
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Scarecrow-8810 March 2011Bijou Phillips is pregnant about six months but the infant inside is growing at an abnormal rate and must be taken out due to the pain inflicted on the mother. Shortly after its birth via C-section, the entire hospital staff is slaughtered by the baby, but Phillips cannot recollect (or has simply blocked the whole incident out) what happened much to the disappointment of the police who need answers. James Murray is the father, Raphaël Coleman his crippled brother(a car accident which killed their parents, he barely survived), Ty Glaser Phillips' school friend, Owen Teale the police officer(Sgt Perkins who suspects Phillips knows more than she is letting on), and Jack Ellis the psychiatrist( attempting to jar Phillips' memory as to what happened that day in surgery)round out the cast. To be honest, I'm not a Bijou Phillips fan and she once again did little to change my opinion of her. Except at the beginning, before entering the hospital for her son's birth, Phillips remains vacuous and aloof. I do understand that her character is tired and mentally deteriorating due to her baby's ferocious appetite for blood and human flesh(killing people and the difficulties of breastfeeding, not to mention, the constant crying for more cannibalistic nourishment don't help matters), but I had a damn hard time sympathetically aligning myself to her. I do think the point of the first film, the desperate attempts by a mother to protect her beloved child no matter what damage it causes or people it harms, is present in the remake, but a lot of the original's personality is missing from the newer modern take. I enjoyed Larry Cohen's "panic stricken public" and how the killer infant was considered a terror to the city, while this remake localizes the monster baby's antics to Phillips and Murray's New Mexico home. Those who come to talk sense into Phillips usually wind up lunch for the baby who even eats rats and cats. While acknowledging her baby's activities in horror when she comes across the grisly remains of what it has done to people it feeds from, she nevertheless continues to protect it, consequences be damned. We know that eventually protecting the baby will become impossible and she will have to take drastic measures to keep it from killing her husband or his brother. I didn't find IT'S ALIVE particularly satisfying, especially the underwhelming CGI of the baby(it is hardly ever on screen and when it is, the effects are quite noticeable)and the gory attacks are often hard to decipher due to the director's insistence on not showing the murders in elaborate detail. I'd just say stick with the original unless you are just a monster baby movie completist. How the baby can lock its father in the basement, hop around like a squirrel, and create such bloody crime scenes defies common sense. The film's explanation for the abnormalities of the baby derived from pills off the internet which are supposed to cause a miscarriage!
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I am astounded by the creation of this mindless film, which serves as yet another pointless remake. Even the original film wasn't impressive, but when I laid my eyes on this abomination, I couldn't help but exclaim, "What on earth is this nonsense?" Here's a breakdown of its numerous flaws:
1. Lackluster acting: The performances were dismal, leaving much to be desired.
2. Poor directing: The direction was even worse, showcasing a complete lack of skill and vision.
3. Dreadful effects: The visual effects were laughable, particularly when it came to the ghastly appearance of the female lead, resembling a poorly executed version of "Child's Play."
4. A script and storyline that defy description: Words fail me when attempting to articulate the sheer incompetence and incoherence of the script and plot.
Save your money and avoid purchasing this film on DVD; it is a colossal disappointment. Hollywood seems to be spiraling downwards, relying on incessant remakes instead of crafting new and captivating narratives. Horror films, in particular, suffer from lackluster actors and recycled storylines. It is disheartening because we are denied the opportunity to experience masterpieces like "The Exorcist" or "Rosemary's Baby." If you haven't watched these true horror classics, then you are truly missing out on the essence of the genre.
This plea goes out to Hollywood: Please cease the production of mindless films and halt the unnecessary remakes. It's time to prioritize quality over profit. -
cxcpdx314 February 2012'It's Alive'! and you'll wish you weren't after wasting time on this little beauty! Allow me to continue. So, is this New Mexico after a nuclear winter? I live in Oregon and this certainly looked like my home, not New Mexico. No sand, no sun, no people of color. But I digress. As the plot (and I use that word loosely) began to unfold another demented baby movie came to mind, that being "Grace". Drop 'It's Alive' on its head and run out and get that movie. Major creep-out. When shown at Sundance, it was said to have caused two men to faint and projectile vomiting from audience members. Anyhow, why does she keep the bundle of joy? If he is so strong as to take out adults, how is it he reverts to cooing baby when in her arms? How is it that she has breasts left? How is it that her husband hasn't noticed the little freak when he gazes upon him in sheer love? This movie is a mess and not in a laughable, good way. Like others who reviewed, I was drawn in by Ms. Phillips. Curious I guess. She did a good job. Didn't burst out laughing at the absurdities in the story line. Did I really see the tiny hand of the baby grabbing at thin air from inside the mouth of one of the victims? If so, it was worth it for that.
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Green_Lump28 June 2010Experiencing a film of a very lousy IMDb rate for the very first time, FAILED! the film was very cheap from every possible side you can ever think of, the directing, the story, the serializing, the everything! no mystery at all, no surprises, no heart-attacking moments, no tension, no attracting, the film was just the kid killing some people, eating some creatures, again and again, and then the same thing repeats itself, waiting for something to happen ? no dear ain't gonna get that ! i am still wondering why did they ever have to make or remake that film, it was some very waste of effort and talent if the people who have worked on it ever had any !
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keystonekid1 November 2009Being a huge fan of the original might have made this remake doomed from the start for me. Don't get me wrong there were some aspects of the movie that i dug, but for the most part, it was really slow-paced and pointless at times. Unlike the original it totally failed to create any mood or suspense. It was if you were just waiting for something to happen that never does. I'll also agree with other reviews that the location of New Mexico was really hard to believe along with James Murray's American accent. So please don't expect to much it's just another drop in the tidal wave of horror movie remakes. Watch the original.
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The premise of the movie is really out there. Of course it's supposed to be over the top and even the explanation you get somewhere in the movie, why this is all happening is so crazy, that you can't help yourself but laugh about it.
Having said that, the sole and main reason, you are going to watch this, is the "bloody mess" it delivers (no pun intended). And it delivers on that premise, so if you are splatter fan, than you can pretty much enjoy this. Not that much going on in the acting category and or the story department. Based on a Cohen movie (which I haven't seen), it's pretty much everything you can expect from it. -
whammy6661 July 2009I love It's Alive, it is a favorite of mine. Cheesy 70's killer baby flick, you can't beat that. I am a big fan of Larry Cohen, and his older flicks, so when I heard a remake was being made I was skeptical. I thought if done right, if they went with a less cheesy approach, it could be decent, at least better than some of the other recent remakes. I wasn't sure what was going on with this film until recently I received a screener of the remake at work. I must say, I actually enjoyed it a lot more than expected. It has flaws, including a CGI killer baby this time...but overall, this film is actually a lot of fun. It isn't the spooky, realistic film it could have been, but it is a bloody good time. Though not as much fun as the original, it is a decent watch, with some decent gore. It really has no relation to the original, other than a killing baby, and the same of the family is still Davis. Overall, if you like the original, it is a decent watch, and if you haven't watched the legendary classic, watch that first, then this. I was just sad they didn't recreate the milkman scene.
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BA_Harrison10 October 2017This remake of Larry Cohen's cult '70s horror is utterly awful from start to finish, director Josef Rusnak unable to make the (admittedly silly) premise of a killer baby convincing or scary in any way. Every scene will have you squirming in your seat, not out of fear, but out of sheer embarrassment for the actors who signed up for this terrible film.
Bijou Phillips plays grad student Lenore Harker, who drops out of school after the traumatic birth of her son Daniel (the entire medical team being slaughtered while performing a C-section). Despite mounting evidence pointing towards Daniel as the culprit, Lenore acts as though nothing is wrong, while architect father Frank (James Murray) remains oblivious throughout. Various people meet messy fates at the claws and jaws of the vicious mite, with some dreadful CGI effects and lots of blood, but the concept and execution is so weak that it's impossible to care.
The best thing that happens in the whole film is the burning to the ground of the really ugly house that is home to the main characters: it's such an eyesore that it's hard to believe that an architect would want to live there. -
I haven't seen the original movie on which this 2008 version is based, so this review is solely based on having seen the 2008 version only.
First of all, I must say that I found the story to be laughable at best. Come on, an infant killing animals and full-grown people? It was just so far out there and it was nowhere near making any sense in a logical way at all. And that really brought down the movie a couple of notches for me, because it was so hard to buy into the storyline.
That being said, then on the other hand, the movie was quite nicely shot and well put together. So there is a great sense of production value to weigh up for the lousy storyline.
And the performances were also helping to carry the movie along, as Bijou Phillips (playing Lenore) and James Murray (playing Frank) were doing good jobs with their characters and helping to bring them to life on the screen.
Sadly, though, that wasn't enough to make the movie stay afloat. For a horror movie, there was a horrible lack of frights, scary moments or spooky elements. It was basically just a couple of hints here and there as to the killing and the mayhem, through the usage of visual techniques with the camera and sound effects. You didn't really get to see anything to implicate that it was actually Daniel who was doing it. I am sure that would have worked back in 1974 during the original movie, but not in 2008.
So despite it being a nicely shot movie, the storyline really killed the experience for me, and I found the movie to be less than average. Personally, I just found the storyline about an infant that kills too laughable and implausible.
I am sure that if you are a fan of either Bijou Phillips or James Murray then you might actually get some worth out of this movie. But if you are watching it with the intent of watching a good horror movie, like I did, you are perhaps better off with something else.
I am giving "It's Alive" a 4/10 rating because of the acting and the way the movie was shot and edited. The storyline itself is the anchor that is causing this movie to drown. -
ruancong16 December 2021This movie is awful to say the least, it's just a bunch of old cliches mixing with another horrible script.
There's really nothing to say about the plot, to put it simple, some drug turns a baby into a monster and he started to kill people, just like a million other cheap horror movies, it's got dumb characters, useless cops, unimpressive monster and tons of plot holes.
What I don't understand is just how weak does the director think a normal adult person is, i mean in the movie, the mutate baby can kill a person within seconds, I get the idea that the mutation gives him some kind of supernatural power, but it is clearly shown in the movie that he had serious trouble busting through an old garbage bin, so how on earth does this same baby just tores apart multiple adult like it was no big deal??? -
FlashCallahan25 August 2012Pregnant college student Lenore Harker leaves college before the end of the semester to move to an isolated house with her boyfriend Frank.
When Lenore is ready to deliver the baby, they drive to the hospital. In the surgery room, the two doctors and the two nurses are found slaughtered and Lenore and the baby are found covered of blood.
When Lenore is released, the family returns to Frank's house....
They should have just called this movie killer baby, or something but the fact of the matter is its a poor remake of a poor movie anyway.
Characters are uninvolved and look bored, and really, the only fun I gore from this movie was spotting British celebs with their silly faux pas American accents.
Special effects are dire, they just consist people running around pretending to be scared of a mutant jelly baby or just over the top scenes of needless gore.
It's a bad movie with little in the way of anything positive, but at least the hospital scene is okay. -
asm13025 February 2014When I watched this film at the movie theater, I had a revelation. I couldn't stop laughing out of the irony.
Actors' performances are awful and most of them are not believable; the screenplay is horrible and sissy; the "Special Effects" seem to be retro but they aren't (just look at the fire in the house of the final scene); and many other characteristics made this movie, one of the worst movies ever made.
However, there are good things about this movie: for instance, if you're studying cinematography you should watch "It's Alive", because this film made think about how not to make movies!