It Lives Again (1978)

Why would anyone make a sequel to the boring, artless It’s Alive? Try a gross of more than S6 million.

This movie is, however, not just another cheapie money-maker – although it is probably the most repugnant film since 1932’s Freaks. With none of that movie’s social comment.

The monsters are babies who literally zoom off the delivery table looking for jugulars to rip. They were only glimpsed in the original, but this time master monster-maker Rick Baker – who created King Kong the Younger and Star Wars‘ flaky barflies – has worked up ugly little beasts.

The talented Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd (who both appeared in the 1976 film The Missouri Breaks) meanwhile seem sullen, as if they wished, sensibly, they were somewhere else.

They play Eugene and Jody Scott, a normal couple unexpectedly approached by Frank Davis (John P. Ryan – reprising his role from the first film) while celebrating their upcoming child at a baby shower.

Frank is still deeply grieving and feeling guilty for helping kill his own mutant infant in the first movie, and has made it his life’s mission to save these children.

He reveals to the Scotts that their unborn child is also a mutant and warns them that a shadowy government task force, led by the ruthless Mallory (John Marley), is actively tracking them and intends to execute the newborn immediately upon birth.

When Mallory’s police force corners the Scotts at the hospital, Frank successfully rescues Jody just as she goes into labour.

The baby is safely delivered inside a heavily reinforced semi-truck specially designed to contain mutant infants.

The family escape to a secluded mansion lab run by Dr Perry (Andrew Duggan), who believes these highly aggressive, fast-growing babies actually represent the next stage of human evolution rather than a disease.

Perry and his fellow scientists already have two other mutant babies under observation.

Despite being kept in isolation cages, the three hyper-intelligent infants coordinate an escape and begin terrorising the mansion.

One baby attacks Eugene by the swimming pool, while the Scotts’ own infant corners Jody.

Frank discovers that Jody’s mother (Lynn Wood) has hidden a tracking device in Jody’s purse, leading the police to the safehouse.

As he tries to spirit the Scott baby away into the woods, a night watchman startles the infant with a flashlight, causing the spooked creature to attack and kill Frank.

Mallory and his men storm the estate, and in the chaotic final shootout, the other mutant babies are killed.

When the Scott baby attacks Mallory, a conflicted Eugene makes a split-second decision to shoot his own mutant child to save Mallory’s life.

Deeply altered by the experience, he then takes up the late Frank Davis’s mission, and the film ends with Eugene preparing to continue the underground work of warning and protecting future parents of mutant children

There may be eight or nine people in the world who would enjoy this film. None of them are pregnant women or children awaiting a new sibling!

Nine years later, Larry Cohen directed It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987), completing his horror trilogy.

Eugene Scott
Frederic Forrest
Jody Scott
Kathleen Lloyd
Frank Davis
John P. Ryan
Mr Mallory
John Marley
Dr Perry
Andrew Duggan
Dr Forest
Eddie Constantine
Det. Lt. Perkins
James Dixon
Dr Peters
Dennis O’Flaherty
Valerie
Melissa Inger
Cindy
Jill Gatsby (as Victoria Jill)
Dr Santo De Silva
Bobby Ramsen
Lydia
Glenda Young
Jody’s Mother
Lynn Wood

Director
Larry Cohen