IT´S ALIVE (2008)
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So, it´s a new year and everything and I´m pretty damn sure that some of you out there have given some New Year´s resolutions and I´m also pretty damn sure that most of you have already broken them. I haven´t given any but I am always striving to become a better man. You know, to be more mature in the way I deal with things and how I look at the world. For instance, some of you out there might be familiar with the fact that I find pregnancies to be deeply uncomfortable. That hasn´t changed. I don’t think it ever will. And as some of you also might´ve noticed, there´s been quite a number of horror movies the last year or two that´s been dealing with the horrors of being pregnant, raising children and all that that entails. Now, I´m not gonna bore with my theories of why I think that this is the case but last night I sat down to watch yet another movie about a killer baby. A while back I wrote about “Grace”, which was a worthy addition to this particular subgenre, but now it was time to check out the remake of Larry Cohen´s fabulous “It´s Alive”, which was supposed to get a theatrical release but ended up getting dumped on DVD a couple of months back.
I knew going in that there was no way in hell that this was going to top the original, which holds a very special place in my heart. Hell, almost all of Larry Cohen´s movies do but particularly the “It´s Alive”-trilogy. It´s a wonderfully deranged trilogy of films that each deals with different aspects of birth deficiencies and how society treats disfigured individuals. But you know, since it is a new year and everything, I figured that I´ll give this one a shot. Everyone deserves a break, right? Even a remake of an old classic.
I don´t wanna ruin the experience for ya but let me put it this way: this one doesn´t hold a candle to the original. I´m not saying that it´s a bad movie! It´s obviously done by competent people and Cohen himself had a finger or two in the writing of the script. It´s just that it feels pretty unoriginal. The charm that the original possessed is gone with the wind, unfortunately.
You all know the story, right? A pregnant couple (played by Bijou Phillips, who amazingly enough not once strips off her clothes and walks around in underwear, and a guy named James Murray) have a somewhat complicated delivery and after a while they realize that their cute little darling has a somewhat voracious appetite. That´s the deal! Pretty much the same thing as when they made the original way back in 1974. The problem with remaking a movie like this is that the original “It´s Alive” is today considered a low budget classic and it is a consider so for a reason, ok? You see, Larry Cohen has this ability (some might call this particular ability “talent”) to infuse his script with great dialogue, humor as well as gore. It´s especially his humor that shines with its absence in this new version! You see, Cohen never pokes fun at the genre but always manages to create humorous situations, based on character rather than on set pieces and shit like that.
I think it´s safe to say that the director of this new version, Josef Rusnak, wasn´t too interested in this. To his credit I have to say that instead of dumbing it down too much and going the easy route, Rusnak keeps it surprisingly serious and moody. The thing is that this doesn´t make the movie particularly entertaining.
I don´t know if you remember this Rusnak guy but he had somewhat of a hit a couple of years back with a movie called “The Thirteenth Floor”, a science fiction flick that dabbled in “Matrix”-territory. Well, I guess that this guy has got talent and whatnot but he insists on making movies that refuses to involve the viewer. “The Thirteenth Floor” was a well made flick and all but it even though it was slick and fairly entertaining, it was one of those films were you just didn´t become interested in the characters and whatever happened to them. And that´s never a good thing when you´re watching a movie. I mean, I couldn´t even remember what the hell “The Thirteenth Floor” really was about an hour after I watched it, but I remember that I kinda liked it. So maybe this guy isn´t that talented after all, huh? I may have jumped the gun on that verdict. ´Cause if you can´t engage your audience, which is sort of a precedent when it comes to making movies, maybe you shouldn´t be making them? Hell, I don´t know but the thing is that this is the biggest problem with the “It´s Alive”-remake: you´re not emotionally invested in this couple that has that monster freak baby! It´s not like in the original where you had god damn Michael Moriarty playing the father.
Which brings to my other main objection towards this piece of film: This guy James Murray ain´t no Michael Moriarty, that´s for god damn sure! Rusnak & Co have for some reason decided that instead of making the movie and focusing on the father´s point of view (like the original did), it would be much more interesting if they made the Mom-character the lead one. Big mistake, guys! By doing this, this movie immediately falls into the coral of every other killer baby movie ever made. Don´t you see? Every one of those movies always focuses on the mother!
But “It´s Alive” didn´t do that, it broke the mold and made the father the lead character and that´s one of the reason why it´s much more interesting than so many other movies. I think it´s kinda like when they remade “Dawn of the Dead” and they decided to remove all the political subtext, the thing that made the original so frickin´ fantastic! I´ll gladly admit that I liked the remake but I thought it was a big mistake to strip away the politics. I just don´t understand why these remakers always has to remove the very essence of these movies? That´s what made them great, for chrissakes!
One thing that Rusnak & co have kept from the original is the amount of bloodshed we get to see onscreen. Just like the original, the blood flows pretty liberally whenever that sharp toothed little fucker rips into one of his victims. So good job on that part of the movie, Rusnak!
But I just can´t help but having this feeling of “Why did they even bother making this?” all throughout the movie. The reason why Larry Cohen is credited on this movie is because he tried to do his own remake for many years and I remember reading interviews with him where he talked about how he wanted to deal with the advancement of genetic engineering in this new version. I think that would have made for a fantastic and interesting subject matter! What if you know that you´re child will be disabled? Are you gonna fix that even you don´t know how it will affect the kid mentally, for example? Or what if it turns out that the kid is gay? Is that something that you would also “fix”? Well, unfortunately Rusnak & co didn´t think that these type of questions would be interesting at all because there´s not a trace of any of this in the final movie, which is a shame. I think that that would at least have validated the remake slightly. As it is now, it´s just one of those “Was that it?”-movies.
But guys, let´s retire the killer baby genre for now, ok? It´s pretty hard to take it seriously in this day and age, ok? If you´re gonna insist on making them at least let Larry Cohen do his take on it or else you´re gonna end up with uninteresting movies like this one.
Well, at least it´s only 84 minutes long. I guess that´s a good thing.
Until next time: take scare!
Thomas
Another wasted opportunity when it comes to remakes. When will they ever learn? This could have made for a pretty fantastic movie but I guess that they blew it.
Yeah. Like I said, it´s a shame that they didn´t seize the opportunity and explored the concept of genetic manipulation more, like Cohen wanted to do with the remake. That would have made for a far more interesting picture, I think. But you know what they say, Mr. Sandman: you can´t have everything!
I made the mistake of watching this one shortly after seeing “Grace.” The only new angle this remake brought was the whole element of the mother trying to cover up the killings/protect her child… which “Grace” does a lot better. And more believably.
Not a bad movie, acceptable if all you want is a movie about a killer baby with the requisite gore.
I agree with you, Dan. GRACE is a vastly superior film that actually managed to be truly unsettling. I don´t know what it says about me as a person but I found the scene when the grandmother started to lactate incredibly disturbing. But like I said, it would´ve been interesting to see what Cohen himself would´ve done with this material again.