It’s Alive [2008]

Please be quiet. Do not wake him up.

Directed by Josef Rusnak

Reviewed by Deep Red

OK, well I thought I’d have a break from the ‘Apes’ tonight and watch this. I haven’t seen the original It’s Alive [1974] or its sequels, It Lives Again [1978] and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive [1987], so I have nothing to compare it to. This isn’t a remake like Carrie [2013] where everyone was talking about it, this is a straight-to-DVD remake that I’d imagine few people knew had even happened. I think it’s fair to say the original film was no Carrie [1976] either, I’m not sure whether It’s Alive [1974] is considered a cult film or just an old horror film, I have heard good things about it.

I really want to see the original film and its sequels and as for this, well, as a firm believer that exposure and popularity mean precisely nothing in terms of whether a film is any good or not I thought I’d check it out. I haven’t checked out any reviews either. I don’t think I’m being aloof or anything I’ve just seen too many ‘bad’ films I did like and ‘good’ films I didn’t like to base whether or not I spend £2.90 on a film based on what other people thought. I review films myself and I can assure you, as if you needed assuring, that reviews are just one person’s honest opinion at best and some kind of consensual universal point-scoring bullshit at worst. Anyway, the film, It’s Alive [2008]:

OK, well firstly, I luckily landed the unrated version, not the rated version with 25 seconds missing. The cut version is out there and I wasn’t sure what I’d got as the word unrated wasn’t on the packet. Cool! Unrated. So important to me.

Lenore Harker (Bijou Phillips) and Frank Davis (James Murray) are having a baby. Lenore has to have a caesarian section at just six months in due to the baby having an unusual growth spurt. Anyway, the doctor cuts the umbilical cord and the next time we see the operating room, all the hospital staff who were in there are dead, there’s blood everywhere and the baby is asleep on the mother.

I don’t want to get too spoiler-heavy so I’ll just say Lenore takes baby home and it turns out he’s a pretty evil little bastard.

I really liked it. It has a decent story and some good horror scenes. The cast is fine, it’s nicely shot and it keeps you watching. It’s a bit of a nutty concept but I don’t think the story is meant to be taken that seriously, I mean, it is about a killer baby; I knew that much in advance so I wasn’t expecting it to reach the dizzy heights of The Exorcist or anything. For what it is, I thought it did OK, better than OK, I certainly wasn’t bored, I enjoyed watching it.

I hope I do get to see the original film series eventually, I’m even more intrigued now. And if you don’t like it, well that’s hard cheese really, maybe check out some other reviews as I can’t honestly think of anything bad to say about it. I doubt it’ll blow anyone away but it’s definitely OK. What more can I say? £2.90 well spent. I’d watch it again. Just check out the unrated version as I think the other, from what I’ve seen, just takes the piss.

Also stars Ty Glaser as Marnie, Raphaël Coleman as Chris Davis, Owen Teale as Sergeant Perkins and Jack Ellis as Professor Baldwin.