It Lives Again (1978)

Some things I liked some I did not.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It's Alive 2 a.k.a It Lives Again, is the happy medium between the original It's Alive, which I find a little dull compared to the other two, and It's Alive Three Island of the Alive, which was much more violent and had a lot more profanity. But the plot to It lives again is nothing special: Affter his baby was killed, Frank Davis starts warning people who are ready to have a baby about what may happen, and what the government may try to do. He and a group of others devise a plan to help a pregnant woman and her husband (The Scotts) have their baby, despite the obvious fact that it will be a mutant. He uses a special truck with appropriate gear to do this. But when the baby kills the doctors, the team captures it, and takes it to a base with two other children to study it. But the government knows what is going on and is intent to stop it. When the three babies get lose, they run ramp-id on the base until the government kills all of them except the Scotts baby, Who kills Frank Davis when he tries to get it to safety. The Parents then offer themselves as bait, remembering what Frank said about the infants ability to find it's parents. The police waits in the area around a house that the Scotts stay in, while the baby makes it's way to them. Eventually it finds them, and they realize that the baby only wants their love, and they then care for it for a short time. But then the government group gases the house to poison the infant, and when the leader steps in, the child attacks him, and it's either shoot their own baby or let the man die. So in the end, Mr. Scott kills his own baby. It's a lot more tragic end in this movie, than in the first. Some may say, this movie isn't as good as the original, and it's probably not, but I say, go check it out, see for yourself...

John P. Ryan returns as Frank Davis, the father of the mutated baby in this, Larry Cohen's sequel to his cult favourite "It's Alive". Frank is now working with a group of people that attempt to help other mutated babies and their parents, and to prevent the tykes from eradication by the authorities. He makes contact with expectant couple Eugene (Frederic Forrest) and Jody (Kathleen Lloyd) and assists in spiriting the kid away to a special sort of clinic. But the cops catch up to them in time to have to deal with the escape of not only Eugene and Jody's offspring but two other murderous infants as well. Cohen had already made his point in the first movie about a possible effect of negative environmental changes on a developing fetus, and his story here is more a portrayal of irrational behaviour that may well annoy some viewers, as it shows how people can be in total denial, and stubbornly continue to engage in dangerous activities, hoping that history won't repeat itself. Characters also opine that maybe, just maybe, the infants have been altered as part of a new step in evolution, a common enough theme in genre fare. But, in the end, there's also the notion present that love and tenderness can temporarily keep a monster at bay. The movie is basically entertaining enough, and respectably paced, with particularly good scenes with Ryan (it's really nice to see him reprise his role) & Forrest and Forrest & John Marley, who plays a cop with a personal motivation for wanting to make the babies extinct. The Bernard Herrmann score is still very effective as well as the Rick Baker makeup effects; Cohen and company refrain from ever giving us an extended look at the babies, which can only be a good thing. The under-rated Forrest is likable as Eugene while the cute Lloyd, an actress whose career should have gone further, is similarly appealing as Jody, although some folk watching may grow tired of their vacillating on the issue of what to do with their child. Marley is very good in his role, while Andrew Duggan, Eddie Constantine, and Cohen regular James Dixon also provide solid support, and Cohen's daughter Jill Gatsby pops up in a small part. All things considered, this isn't as sharp or memorable as the first movie but not really bad either. Six out of 10.

In a direct sequel to Cohen's 1974's cult favourite "It's Alive!", Forrest and Lloyd take over as a couple playing host parents to a newborn 'sacrilige' being observed along with two fellow mutant tots by a mad-dish ("perhaps theirs is the race that will be able to adapt to the future") scientist.The script's impartial stance on the blindness of the 'authorities' against the plain stupidity of nature-tampering science, along with the excellent and affecting portrayal of parental suspended grief by the two leads, are sadly the film's only virtues.On the back of the cult critical plaudits poured over his "God Told Me To" the previous year Cohen seems to have transformed into the Tarantino of his day by the time of this production, resulting in an overly-discerning, archly facetious parody of his original. Following a coherent and workable first 20 minutes the babies escape, characterisation fades into evanescent memory, and suspenselessly-edited sequences telegraphed as 'shock' but ending up as anything but become the order of the day.Cohen's career subsequent to this was a pretty unambiguously hit ("Q") and miss ("Wicked Stepmother", "Return to Salem's Lot") affair. Visually it's all pretty ugly, and just like with the aforementioned Mr T it's hard to discern (ie care) whether or not the amateur slapdashness is in fact sick slickness. Hardly a gracious return to American movies for Eddie 'Lemmy Caution' Constantine, either.

I read James Dixon's great novelization of this sequel first, so my expectations were high. Too high. It plays like a retread of the first film with three killer tots instead of one.John Ryan is back trying to warn other parents of the infant scourge, but nobody listens until it's too late or they're dead.Once again, Cohen gives us a dialog-heavy, vapid time-waster with little action until the last ten minutes and badly directed action at that.Bernard Herrmann's score is culled from unused cues from the first film and is the film's only saving grace.If you can still find it, read the novelization and consider what this film could have been.