IT LIVES AGAIN (1978)

With a crushing sense of dread I crammed the disc for IT LIVES AGAIN in the trusty ol' Oppo and...yep, it was just as boring as I had feared.  The posters promised "now there are three of them" and while technically that's true, it doesn't make this second It's Alive movie any better than the original clunker.

Instead of opening with a woman going into labor, getting stuck in a traffic jam in downtown NYC and the three babies popping out like murderous acrobats and going on a non-stop, blood soaked rampage in the Big Apple, IT LIVES AGAIN opens with a baby shower and a lot of talking.  Thirty-one minutes worth of talking to be exact before the first baby finally even shows up!  He kills one person and is then taken to a secret laboratory where a small group of morons are keeping three babies in the misguided belief that they are the next step in evolution!  One champion even tries to hold a baby...which immediately rips his throat out (or so I'm guessing it did, since once again all of the violence is implied or off screen).  The three babies escape and two of them are immediately killed by the police, so now we're right back down to one baby again.  Lame.  The lone killer baby then goes looking for his parents.  How sweet.

I wasn't expecting much from IT LIVES AGAIN and that's exactly what I got: not much.  Ugly photography, bad lighting, crappy special effects, godawful police work, slow story, weak acting, terrible script.  Honestly, there's very little redeeming qualities about this snoozer.  I wish I had never watched it.   

Part 1 - It's Alive (1974)
Part 3 - It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
Remake - It's Alive (2008)

IT'S ALIVE (1974)

Just like being slapped in the face with a shit-filled diaper, IT'S ALIVE assaults the viewer with the extremely stinky story of two unattractive people who are about to have a baby.  The good news is, even though the baby is hideously mutated and ugly as fuck, it's still better looking than the interior decoration of their house.  The bad news is...it's alive!

Straight out of the pussy, the baby attacks and kills (off screen) five people in the delivery room.  After that it crawls all around Los Angeles killing people off screen.  The dad is fired from his job for having a "retarded" baby and the police are running around like a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs.  Which raises the question: since the police know that the baby kills with its claws and teeth, then why do they still wear their normal street clothes?  If somebody ordered me to go in a building to confront the killer baby with nasty, big, pointy teeth...I'd be decked out like the fuckin' bomb squad!

Anyway.  The story sounds exciting, but it's not.  In fact, it's extremely boring and while audiences back in 1974 might have got a kick out of it (did they?) people nowadays would probably be bored stiff by the slow story, lack of violence, amateur acting, weak script and dark lighting.

Not the worst thing I've ever seen, but I was severely disappointed by how lackluster the whole thing was.  Skip it.

[Update 8/18/2021: Just added a newspaper ad that says "...IT BEGINS WHERE ROSEMARY'S BABY LEAVES OFF." What the hell? This movie literally has nothing to do with Satan.]

Part 2 - It Lives Again (1978)
Part 3 - It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
Remake - It's Alive (2008)

The same weird wallpaper appears in Part 3.