It’s Alive *** (1974, John P Ryan, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan, Guy Stockwell, James Dixon, Michael Ansara) – Classic Movie Review 5859

‘There’s only ONE thing wrong with the Davis baby… IT’S ALIVE!’ A newly born baby turns out to be a monster who goes on the murderous rampage whenever upset, in writer-producer-director Larry Cohen’s lively, imaginative, and of course unpleasant 1974 cult horror exploitation movie It’s Alive.

It stars Sharon Farrell and John P Ryan as the couple who are expecting a baby, Andrew Duggan, Guy Stockwell, James Dixon and Michael Ansara, with Robert Emhardt, William Wellman Jr and Shamus Locke.

The low budget but well-crafted movie recalls Rosemary’s Baby, with its monstrous pregnancy theme, and gets a lift from distinguished composer Bernard Herrmann’s fine score and the good Rick Baker special effects.

There are two sequels: It’s Alive II [It Lives Again] directed by Larry Cohen in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive directed by Cohen in 1987.

The similar I Don’t Want to be Born followed in 1975.

Larry Cohen (1941–2019).

RIP Larry Cohen, cult horror writer-director of It’s Alive (1974) and The Stuff (1985), who died on 23 March 2019, aged 77.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5859

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