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Movie Info
Cast & Crew
Frank Davies
Lenore Davies
The Professor
Bob Clayton
Lieutenant Perkins
The Captain
Critic Reviews for It's Alive
All Critics (23) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (6)
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Larry Cohen's horror thriller is at once a great suspense/monster film and a darkly comic soap opera about strained parent-child relationships.
May 24, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review… -
A deeply terrifying portrait of child-parent relationships and intolerant fears of "otherness" defined as much by its sociological sharpness as its gore.
January 26, 2006 | Rating: A | Full Review… -
One part allegory on familial tensions and one part commentary on environmental and biological poisoning.
November 3, 2004 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review… -
It's Alive goes from foreboding conversations about pollution to full tilt nightmare rather quickly.
August 25, 2020 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review… -
...the picture slowly-but-surely loses its grip on the viewer as it progresses into an often unbearably meandering midsection...
August 11, 2020 | Rating: 1/4 | Full Review… -
It's Alive is a classic in its own right, having created a new monster, one created by mankind's willingness to ignore its environment and its own lives, something that was way ahead of its time in 1974 ...
April 17, 2020 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Audience Reviews for It's Alive
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Jun 28, 2020My goodness composer Bernard Hermann was brilliant. He elevates screenwriter/director Larry Cohen's ho-hum demon child tale into something that feels deeper than it really is.Aldo G Super Reviewer
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Oct 31, 2012Starts out with a very regular daily basis routine of a family that is brutaly interrupted by the birth of the mutant child. It's a wonderful setup that unfortunently doesn't pay off much later on. The rest is a very competently made and acted horror/mistery flick but doesn't offer much else. The cinematography is pretty bland and boring and the creature itself pathetic at times, but fortunently it sticks to the shadows most of the time.Francisco G Super Reviewer
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Jul 30, 2011<i>"When I was a kid, I always thought the monster was Frankenstein. You know, Karloff walking around in these big shoes, grunting. I thought he was Frankenstein. Then I went to high school and I read the book, and I realized that Frankenstein was the doctor who created him. Somehow the identities get all mixed up, don't they?</i> Haha, didn't the exact same happen to you? Call me insane, but this was shot in a most bizarre way. I liked that. It was also horribly edited and had a godawful continuity. The main character has a scary physiognomy, and the baby is hilariously scary. I liked all of that too. 75/100Edgar C Super Reviewer
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Apr 08, 20115.2/10 Larry Cohen must be the equivalent to God for fans of cheesy, B-movie horror. Here, he's made a suitably cheesy film that is meant to be scary, funny, and entertaining. It's got traits of all three things hidden beneath the surface, but mind you, this film is rough. I won't say it's a bad film. In fact, for a movie like this, it's better than it needs to be. There are some funny moments, some scary moments, and yes, some entertaining moments. This film has all the necessary materials, but without the mind and intelligence to use them wisely. At best, I felt this was an entertaining, but completely forgettable slice of campy horror than does not do what it wants to do as well as it thinks. The film intends to be scary by preventing us from seeing much, which is smart. But where's the humor? Why isn't this movie scary AND funny? There's a charm to this movie, and it's waiting to charm and seduce me, but I just can't enjoy this flick when it can't even do half of what it wants to do. But...at least they tried. The film stylizes itself by not showing the film's villain so much. We see his little fangs, and his little disturbingly horrid face once in a while, but this film admittedly understands one of the rules of horror; don't show much unless you intend on showing something worthwhile. That very much applies to "It's Alive", but that does not make it good. The story opens with a couple awaiting the birth of their second child. The wife and the Husband leave their first-born at a friend's house, while they rush to the hospital to have the baby. After unusually hard labor, the child is born. But the babe isn't normal. In fact, the child is born hideous and deformed. When it pops out, it starts to kill people. We theorize that it may kill only when it's frightened, or perhaps this is only what (most) of the synopsis' suggest. So the murderous, mutant baby goes on a killing spree while his worried parents deal with the pressure of the press. They are surrounded by suspicion, caused by suspicious people. They don't understand what the couple understands. They don't know that this diaper-wearing little tyke is a demonic weapon of certain, (nigh) mass destruction. You see; this film consistently tries to balance relationship drama with something along the lines of a "horror-comedy". I appreciate what this movie is trying to do to murderous little babies, but it doesn't quite hit the funny or scary bone as it intends. The relationship is weak. The husband goes from loving his bundle of joy to detesting the thing to the point where he'd kill it. From there, the movie gets dark, cruel, and therefore, we get sad. They also could have made the movie touching, but no...they just end it on a note that TRIES to have a purpose and a message. Sadly, the ending shouts "sequel", and it's one that I don't think I'm going to watch. I heard by the third one, they've got an island full of these babies. Oh, wherever will they go next?Ryan M Super Reviewer
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