IT'S ALIVE
Sub-Genre- Evil Kids/Remake
In Attendance- Me
Cast Members of Note- Bijou Phillips, James Murray, Raphael Coleman, and Ty Glaser.
What's it About?- A knocked up college student leaves school to move to the ranch of her architect boyfriend, and have their love child. At only six months along, they're both surprised to find that the baby wants out, and their going to be parents early. They're both even more surprised to find out that during the C-Section, everyone in the operating room was slaughtered.
Once home, odd things begin to happen: the baby scratches Daddy and draws blood; the baby bites Mommy's nipple repeatedly, forcing her to milk herself and feed him via bottle; the cat disappears; animals start showing up dead; Mom finds baby eating animals; baby kills people, and Mom covers the murders up... Parenting is obviously all about sacrifice.
Soon enough, Dad finds out what Jr. is up to and he enlists the help of the local bumpkin Sheriff and his crippled little brother to put an end to things, but to no avail. I won't spoil what comes next here, but suffice it to say that being the parent of an evil, mutant-strong, flesh-hungry baby isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
The Good- This movie could have been great. The 1974 original was kinda crappy (love it all you want, but it wasn't a great movie) and they could have really improved upon it here. The remake had flashes of quality, but it gets bogged down by a messy script, unrealistic characters, and a killer baby that you barely get to see kill, and when you do, it's rendered in not-so-great CGI.
That being said, this is better than the average straight-to-DVD fare, and is a fun movie despite its flaws. Bijou Phillips is awesome, both her boobs and her screen presence, and she really does carry the film. On a sad note, most of the baby's evil deeds happen off screen, and we don't get to see the little terror tyke all that much. At least we get Bijou.
The Bad- This movie seemed to turn into an anti-abortion morality play, not only with an actual subplot, but with the mother's actions showing how bad she feels having almost given herself a "natural miscarriage" via pill. Even the notion of the mother burning for what she almost did comes into play at the end, and it just fell flat for me.
The Downright Horrendous- Are new mother's so mentally frail and moronic that they allow murders, no, they help cover up murders that their newborn infant's commit? Think about that too... your newborn infant is killing animals and people... so at what point do you tell someone what the hell is going on, because IT'S NOT FRIGGING NORMAL?
The Gory- We get a fair amount of gore, though a lot of it is of the CGI variety. Still, there are some bloody good gags to be had here.
The Naked- Pregnant mommy boobs in the shower, and a badly bitten nipple, and that's about it. Nothing of the sexy variety.
Best Line- "I know he's your baby, and you love him, but he scares the hell out of me."
What did we learn?- Don't have kids. Also, don't order abortion pills over the internet because you never know, now do you? You never know.
Rating- C (5.5/10) This is a decent direct to DVD movie that borders on being good, really good even, but falls short in the end. In a genre where we're bombarded with offensively bad movies on a regular basis, it's definitely worth a look-see.
Final Thoughts- God, she's dirty hot.
