Review of It Lives Again (1978) by Tim B — 07 May 2011

Well, I guess my It's Alive franchise marathon is over. Good while it lasted! The original It's Alive was a good flick. It sported a serious tone, a good message and terrific acting. Then comes this entry which looked promising but instead bored me to the brink of crying like a mutant baby.

First off, the new couple in this entry were boring and I didn't give a crap about either one of them. After the set up was made within the first half hour (two different views on mutant baby rights) the movie pretty much did absolutely nothing from there until the very end.

The baby rights weren't brought up or studied enough to feel genuine. Without the story driving this, you would expect there to be at least more carnage to make up for that. No dice. There are three mutant babies in this one and they hardly do anything.

In the first one, not showing the child a lot worked because there was only one of them and the subtlety was more frightening. But when you have a small army of them and are expecting carnage, it's time to show it off.

Larry Cohen was napping off and on throughout the shoot, I'm sure of it. Nothing comes to mind in terms of his directorial efforts. Very basic shots and a boring ass pace. You're better than that! Frederic Forrest was good with what he had and the same goes for Kathleen Lloyd.

I don't think it was their performances but I just didn't care about either one of them. John P. Ryan shows up and does terrific again but then disappears halfway through the movie. It's too bad because he was one of the few aspects that had my full attention.

John Marley is also terrific in his role. Wish we could have seen more of him, especially after his key scene. He does great. Anything positive? The underlying issue is still present in terms of human rights but since it was already fully established in the first one I already got that message.

The baby effects did improve since the first one. Too bad we never get to see them... I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I want to see It's Alive Part 3 because this one left a sour taste in my mouth.

Terrible pacing, mediocre acting, amateur directing, no scares, no surprises, no fun. I'm over it...