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It's Alive

It's Alive (2008)

September. 10,2008
|
3.5
|
R
| Horror Science Fiction

When a young woman learns that she's pregnant, she leaves graduate school to set up a home with her boyfriend in the country. The fate of the happy new family takes a gruesome turn when animals and people end up brutally dead – all with a strange connection to their newborn. Could their new child be the responsible for the killings?

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Reviews

Hellen
2008/09/10

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Moustroll
2008/09/11

Good movie but grossly overrated

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ThedevilChoose
2008/09/12

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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Bluebell Alcock
2008/09/13

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

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BA_Harrison
2008/09/14

This 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.

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Scarecrow-88
2008/09/15

Bijou 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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Michael O'Keefe
2008/09/16

An ambitious remake of Larry Cohen's 1974 killer baby classic. An attractive grad student Lenore(Bijou Phillips)puts her education on hold to have a baby with her architect boyfriend Frank(James Murray). Plans of a beautiful life in a secluded country atmosphere is not going to stand a chance when Lenore has her baby by emergency C-section. Not exactly a bundle of joy; but a natural born killer...an abomination craving to be fed. Lenore knows her baby is prone to savage attacks, but just can't tell her husband of their baby's murderous impulses. A few chills and a couple of squirms in store; but you hardly get to see the monster baby...just what is left over from his ravaging appetite . Others in the cast: Owen Teale, Jack Ellis, Ty Glaser and Raphael Coleman. Little baby Daniel is an unholy terror.

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Argemaluco
2008/09/17

I do not hate many remakes because they stain the memory of "classic" (or semi-classic) movies.In fact, I am absolutely open to receive them with all the possible objectivity, and I think I could recognize their hits in the minority of cases something good came from them (like for example, The Thing and Dawn of the Dead).But what definitely upsets me from many remakes is the arrogance to think they can improve an old film with the mere thing of "modernize" it, when generally the value from the original film resides on the historical context it was made, portraying the sensibility and style from a time.A clear example is the cult film It's Alive, written and directed by the underrated Larry Cohen in 1974, which had a naughty style which found suspense and human drama in premises which border on the ridiculous.That also applies to other Cohen's films, such as The Stuff, Q and God Told Me To, which ended up being much more entertaining and interesting than I expected.What I mostly liked from It's Alive is that it endorsed its bizarre story with interesting ideas about paternity, scientific responsibility and the then emergent field of the induced fertility.Now, the atrocious remake of that film tries to "update" those ideas, but without a pinch of the ingenuity and talent Cohen showed in the original film.It's Alive does not fulfill at all with its purpose of creating horror, suspense or even interest.90% of this movie is set on a remote house, something which severely limits the wingspan from the story, and instead of the suburban horror from the original film, we have a simple "slasher" formula, with the disposable characters escaping from the murderer by the dark corridors and basements from the house.And even though the murderer is a baby, that circumstance is never used to try something more innovating or at least shocking.Another big problem is the pathetic performances.Nobody shows even the slightest energy or conviction.And as for direction, Josef Rusnak belongs to the school of filmmakers who simply film the scenes from the screenplay, and they then chronologically edit them...but who do not have a single idea on how to tell a story, or how to work with the actors.I do not have much more to say.It's Alive (2008) is an execrable "horror" movie, and one of those films which truly damage the genre.Instead of watching this atrocity, I recommend you to see the very entertaining original film.

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