It's Alive (1974 Film)
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''It's Alive'' is a 1974 American science fiction horror film written, produced, and directed by
Larry Cohen Lawrence George Cohen (July 15, 1936 – March 23, 2019) was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as ''Black Caesar (film), Black Caesar'' and ''Hell Up in Harlem'' (both 1973), before becomin ...
. It stars John P. Ryan and
Sharon Farrell Sharon Farrell (born Sharon Forsmoe, December 24, 1940 – May 15, 2023) was an American television and film actress, and dancer. Originally beginning her career as a ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre company, Farrell made her film debu ...
as a couple whose infant child turns out to be a vicious
mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It i ...
. The film's cast also includes James Dixon, William Wellman Jr., Shamus Locke,
Andrew Duggan Andrew Duggan (December 28, 1923 – May 15, 1988) was an American character actor. His work includes 185 screen credits between 1949 and 1987 for roles in both film and television, as well a number more on stage. Background Duggan was born i ...
,
Guy Stockwell Harry Guy Stockwell (November 16, 1933 – February 6, 2002) was an American actor who appeared in nearly 30 movies and 250 television series episodes. Life and career Stockwell was born in New York City, the son of singer/dancer Elizabeth "B ...
, and
Michael Ansara Michael George Ansara (; April 15, 1922 – July 31, 2013) was an American actor. A Syrian-American, he was often cast in Arabic and American Indian roles. His work in both film and television spanned several genres including historical epic ...
. The baby was designed and created by special effects make-up artist
Rick Baker Richard Alan "Rick" Baker (born December 8, 1950) is a retired American special make-up effects creator and actor. He is mostly known for his creature designs and effects. Baker has won the Academy Award for Best Makeup a record seven times f ...
, and the film's score was composed by
Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in film scoring. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely regarde ...
. ''It's Alive'' was distributed by
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
and received mixed reviews upon release. It spawned two sequels, '' It Lives Again'' (1978) and '' It's Alive III: Island of the Alive'' (1987), as well as a 2009 remake. It is the only film in the ''It's Alive'' series with a PG rating as the remainder of the series all have the R rating.


Plot

In Los Angeles, Frank Davis and his wife Lenore are expecting their second child. Frank is a successful public relations consultant and his wife is a stay-at-home mom for their first child, Chris. The couple avoided having a child for several years while Lenore took contraceptive pills. When their child is ready to be born, they leave Chris with a family friend, Charley, and go to the hospital. Their second child, a baby boy, is born monstrously deformed, with fangs and claws. Immediately after birth it kills the doctors and nurses in the delivery room and flees through a skylight. Lenore is left alive, screaming for her child as a horrified Frank discovers the carnage. Frank and Lenore are allowed to leave the hospital while the police, including Lt. Perkins, investigate the killings. Frank and Lenore receive attention from the press, which results in Frank being fired from his job at a
public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...
company. Meanwhile, the Davis' baby lurks around outdoors, killing several people, including a
milkman Milk delivery is a Delivery (commerce), delivery service dedicated to supplying milk, typically in milk bottle, bottles or cartons, to customers' homes. This service is performed by a milkman, milkwoman, or milk deliverer. (In contrast, a Cowman ...
. As the killings continue, the press and the police hound Frank and Lenore. Frank meets with medical researchers who convince him to sign documents allowing them to experiment on the child's body once it has been found and killed. Frank denies that the child is his son and joins the hunt for the murderous infant. The doctor who prescribed the contraceptive pills to Lenore is contacted by an executive of a pharmaceutical company. The executive acknowledges that the Davis' child's mutation may have been caused by the drugs. He tells the doctor that the child must be destroyed to prevent discovery of the company's liability. Meanwhile, the child makes its way to a school. Frank learns of the child's location and arrives at the school, where police officers are present. Frank informs Lt. Perkins that Chris attends the school. The baby attacks and kills an officer in a classroom before escaping through a window into the night. Later, Frank discovers that Lenore is hiding the infant in the basement of their home. Chris runs away from Charley's house in order to get back home, and Charley drives after him. Lenore pleads with Frank and promises that the baby would not hurt their family. Frank, armed with a gun, enters the basement, where he finds Chris talking to the baby and promising to protect him. Frank shoots at the baby, injuring it. The infant flees the basement and attacks Charley, biting him on the neck and killing him. The police track the infant into the storm sewers, where Frank hunts him with a rifle. When he finds the baby, he realizes that it is frightened. He apologizes to the child and picks him up. Wrapping the baby in his coat, Frank tries to elude the police, but a mob of armed cops confronts him as he exits the sewers. He pleads for them to study the child, but to not harm him. A fertility doctor shouts at the police to kill him. The child suddenly leaps from Frank's arms and attacks the doctor as the cops open fire, killing both the infant and the doctor. As the grieving Davises are escorted away by the police, a depressed Lt. Perkins receives news that another similar mutant baby has been born in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
.


Cast


Production

Special effects make-up artist
Rick Baker Richard Alan "Rick" Baker (born December 8, 1950) is a retired American special make-up effects creator and actor. He is mostly known for his creature designs and effects. Baker has won the Academy Award for Best Makeup a record seven times f ...
designed and created the murderous baby depicted in the film.
Larry Cohen Lawrence George Cohen (July 15, 1936 – March 23, 2019) was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as ''Black Caesar (film), Black Caesar'' and ''Hell Up in Harlem'' (both 1973), before becomin ...
, who wrote, produced and directed the film, called Baker on the telephone while Baker was at the home of Dick Smith, where he was working on effects for the 1973 film ''
The Exorcist ''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...
''. During that initial phone call, Cohen pitched the concept of the film to Baker, and suggested building a baby suit that could be worn by Cohen's cat, or "a chicken or something ..maybe two chickens!" Baker next heard from Cohen two weeks after filming had begun. Cohen had decided to rarely show the infant in the film, and asked Baker to create a "dummy baby" for the actors to react to. Baker constructed the baby with an aluminum wire armature, allowing for articulated limbs and adjustable eyeballs. For close-up shots, Baker created a full-head mutant infant mask, a pair of gloves, and a partial body suit, which were worn by Baker's then-girlfriend and later wife, Elaine Parkyn.


Release

The film had a complicated release through
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
beginning in 1974. Upon completing the film, Cohen found the executives who had backed the production had been replaced and the new executives showed little interest in the project. The studio gave the film a one theater run in April—May 1974 in Chicago. It was then given a limited release beginning October 18, 1974. The film drew respectable business, but the company still did not fully support the project. Three years after its original release, Warner Bros. saw another change in executives and Cohen asked the new group to review the film. ''It's Alive'' was reissued in March 1977 with a new advertisement campaign. The updated 1977 TV advertisement features a baby carriage, accompanied by the lullaby "
Rock-a-bye Baby "Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top" (sometimes "Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top") is a nursery rhyme and lullaby. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 2768. Words The rhyme exists in several versions. One modern example, quoted by the Nationa ...
" and a voice-over that says, "There's only one thing wrong with the Davis baby. It's alive." The new ad drew people into theaters, ultimately earning
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
$7.1 million in U.S. domestic rentals.


Critical response

On the
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, ''It's Alive'' holds an approval rating of 67% based on 24 critic reviews and has an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Tough and unpleasant, ''It's Alive'' throttles the viewer with its bizarre mutant baby theatrics." On
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on six reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote, "Mr. Cohen is not unintelligent, but the few interesting ideas in his horror films, including the recent ''
Demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...
'', are drenched in supreme silliness by way of the dialogue and special effects." A review published in ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' called it a "stomach-churning little film", praising Herrmann's "highly effective" score but criticizing the film's script as being too far-fetched. Gene Siskel of the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' gave the film one out of four stars, lambasting it as "imbecilic". Kevin Thomas of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' called it "a sort of primitive low-budget sequel — rip-off may be the better word — to '' Rosemary's Baby''. Despite patches of risible dialogue and other ludicrous bits and pieces it holds attention and even manages to be pretty scary." Tom Milne of ''
The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' wrote, "Attitudes to horror films being what they are, it's a fairly safe bet that John Ryan won't get the credit he so richly deserves for an outstanding performance which brings ''It's Alive'' within striking distance of ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
.''"
Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
gave ''It's Alive'' two-and-a-half out of four stars, commending Herrmann's score but noting that the film is "not for all tastes." A review published by ''
TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
'' awarded the film three out of five stars, reading, "Part visceral horror flick and part Oedipal allegory, ''It's Alive'' explores a widely repressed but crucial element of family life—parents' ambivalence toward their children—and satirizes society's cavalier treatment of its youngest members." A review published by '' Time Out'' reads, "Despite such potentially sidesplitting material, the film often manages to instill a genuinely chilling atmosphere, with its initially kitsch family growing into human beings as they plummet into a world unhinged and apart at the seams." Dennis Schwartz of ''Ozus' World Movie Reviews'' gave ''It's Alive'' a grade of "A," praising Ryan's performance and calling the film "a wacky low-grade entertaining horror pic, one that also has an edge, is discomforting and surprisingly has a good blend of humor and splatter."


Home media

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...
released ''It's Alive'' on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
and, on October 5, 2004, on DVD. On May 15, 2018,
Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...
released a three-disc
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
box set of the ''It's Alive'' trilogy. This set contains ''It's Alive'', as well as its sequels '' It Lives Again'' and '' It's Alive III: Island of the Alive''.


Related works


Novelization

The novelizations of the first film and its sequels expound on the dangers of various prescription drugs administered to expectant mothers during the 1950s and early 1960s (e.g.
thalidomide Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is an oral administered medication used to treat a number of cancers (e.g., multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and many skin disorders (e.g., complication ...
), the use of fertility drugs, and the indirect use of pesticides on people. In the story, the mother of the first mutant child had a history of taking
combined oral contraceptive pill The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be Oral administration, taken orally by women. It is the oral form of combi ...
s prior to planning her second pregnancy, whereupon she instead began taking an inadequately tested fertility drug to facilitate the conception of her second child.


Sequels and remake

''It's Alive'' was followed by two sequels, '' It Lives Again'' (1978) and '' It's Alive III: Island of the Alive'' (1987). A
remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...
was released in 2009.


See also

* List of American films of 1974


References


Bibliography

*


External links

* * * * {{Subject bar, portal1=1970s, portal2=Film, portal3=Speculative fiction, portal4=United States, portal5=California, portal6=Los Angeles, commons=y, d=y It's Alive films 1974 films 1974 horror films 1970s monster movies 1970s science fiction horror films American monster movies American science fiction horror films Films about babies Films about mutants Films directed by Larry Cohen Films scored by Bernard Herrmann Films set in the 1970s Films set in Los Angeles Warner Bros. films Films with screenplays by Larry Cohen 1970s English-language films 1970s American films 1974 science fiction films English-language science fiction horror films