Paranoia regarding the effects of drugs on an unborn child is touched upon in this horror flick with the conceit that a baby is born in mutated form and kills practically anything in its path! Ryan and Farrell play the parents of an 11 year-old boy who have another one on the way, a baby they weren't 100% sure they should proceed with. Following a particularly difficult delivery, the infant slaughters most of the attending staff and slinks off into the night to find more victims. Ryan struggles with the idea that he could sire such a thing while warding off insensitive journalists and other hostile people while Farrell begins to lose her grip, retreating to her bed in a drug-fueled haze. While police scour the city looking for the bloodthirsty tyke, Ryan decides he needs to be the one to kill it himself, especially after a close encounter with the little beast spells death for one of his relatives. Combining elements of classic 50s sci-fi and 70s splatter, this is a cheap, often schlocky movie, but one with cult appeal and with an interesting cast. Ryan is a severe-looking presence and comes off as very stoic much of the time, but does reveal a tender side every now and then. This was a rare chance for him to assume a leading role. Farrell (who, ironically, had endured a horrific episode in the delivery room in real life prior to this – involving a stopped heart and considerable amnesia!) is generally effective, though her role is never quite as significant as Ryan's. Perhaps she comes off as a little over-the-top at times due to the frequent underplaying of her costar. Several notable actors pop up, rather briefly, in supporting roles. Stockwell has one good-sized scene as Ryan's faux sympathetic employer, Duggan has a scene as a research physicist who would like to study the "baby" and (startlingly bald) Ansara has a blink-and-miss-it cameo as a police detective. Wellman plays Ryan's brother, one of the most normal and relatable people in the film. Filmed rather darkly, sometimes with rickety hand-held camera-work that may as well have been done by Katharine Hepburn, the stark cheapness of the project actually makes the events a little scarier and more accessible than they might have been otherwise. The decidedly low-rent visuals (and editing via Ginsu knife apparently!) are given a lift by legendary composer Bernard Herrmann's score, though many people questioned why he was associated with such a movie. He and the director struck up a friendship and it led to their working together. Future effects whiz Kenny Baker did the "creature work" here with mixed results. There are instances in which the baby is laughable (none more so, though, than in a scene at the end when what is supposed to be the monster baby wrapped in a coat is briefly revealed to be a white, furry dog! The director left this in deliberately for the purposes of his own amusement.) and moments when suspense is considerable. Almost as scary as the storyline is the cornucopia of eye-assaulting, intensely ugly 70s décor that marks the residence of Ryan and Farrell. There are some doozies in the way of furniture, wallpaper and so on. Note also how much smoking goes on and where! Times have changed. Film fans will likely enjoy some of the quirky aspects that the creator has inserted (such as Ryan doing a Walter Brennan impersonation to his son for no apparent reason.) Not necessarily a good movie, it is, one way or another, an entertaining one and has a loyal following. It was followed by two sequels and a 2008 remake.
Review of It's Alive
