It's Alive 2: It Lives Again!

(1978) ***

Of course, I had to watch this, because JPX said he would be my best friend if I did.  So Octo and I checked it out.

If you look at this entry out on imdb.com and go clicking around on the actors' names, you'll see they all did just about every television show in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even some recent ones.  The performances were all pretty great, and they almost make up for the fact that the baby puppet is just so damned stupid.  The remake of It's Alive is on the way, and I gotta say, this is one movie that CG should help out a lot.  Back in '78, there was just no way to make any kind of computer generated baby, and it didn't look like Larry Cohen tried too hard to make even a good robot or puppet.  So like the original, this movie relies on hiding the monster from us.

Somewhere during our viewing, I starting calling the baby puppets the "It's Alives," as in, "He better watch out!  There's an It's Alive in the pool!"  And that reminded me of Baby Alive, who apparently is also making a comeback long after her 1973 debut.  Unfortunately, the song for the old Baby Alive commercial got stuck in my head.  I just went poking around on Youtube to see if I could find it, but I only found a bunch of less catchy jingles.  Too bad.  It would really be a Horrorthon coup of some kind of I could inject this annoying Baby Alive song into all of your heads.  Maybe you remember it:

Baby Alive

Soft and sweet,

She can drink,

She can eat.

Baby Alive,

beautiful face,

dressed in pink

and pretty lace.

Tell me somebody recalls this one?

Anyway, back to the film.  There are now three It's Alives.  Frank Davis from the first film is on a campaign to save freak infants from the crews of baby killers who arrive at the scene as soon as tests determine a mother is about to give birth to a monster.  Still no explanation as to why women keep having these things.  Probably it's pollution, or something, and oh, maybe these are a new race of humans designed to withstand said pollution.  Whatever.

The thing is that if you have three It's Alives, the obvious scene we want to see is all of them on a rampage together, killing lots and lots of people.  But that's not what happens.

Instead, the movie aims for social commentary and explores themes of how, um, it's kind of wrong to kill infants.  Or...is it???

The emotional draw of the parents--who in spite of everything their monster babies have done, still just want to hold and rock the little dears--got me again in this one.  But the baby killing scenes didn't bother me as much.  Either that's because the puppets of the It's Alives were so ridonkulous, or it's because I'm just getting harder.  Thanks, Horrorthon!

I'd say the entire franchise so far is worth watching, even if it's just for the yuks.