So much average

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I thought the first movie of this series was a pretty mediocre effort all around, so my hopes were not high when I sat down to watch this sequel. To my surprise, for quite a while I thought that this movie was shaping up to be much better than the original movie. The production values are a lot better, for one thing. Also, the first half of the movie, with the new and old characters, is surprisingly engaging. It was a new angle and not simply copying the first movie.However, around the halfway point, the movie starts to fall apart and gets more tedious as it progresses. There's a lot less horror in this sequel than the first movie - in fact, the first real horror sequence only happens when more than half an hour of the running time has passed! The real problem is that the movie simply becomes boring and a tough slog to get through. Too bad, since writer/director Larry Cohen did have the stuff to make a better film.One last thing: "It Lives Again" was rated "R", while the first movie got a "PG" rating. Which I don't understand, because "It Lives Again" has no nudity, no sex, no foul language, and far less blood and horror than the first film!

It Lives Again (1978) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Sequel to It's Alive has another mutant baby being born but this time the government is there to kill it on the spot. This doesn't sit too well with a certain group of people who want to keep the baby and study it. Once again director Cohen adds some political messages but the end results aren't as fun as the first film. I'm sure he must have needed the money to do this thing because it doesn't come off with any of the charm as the first one. There are some very good moments in the movie but sadly they're all wasted with the deep message, which becomes quite annoying after a while. The attack sequences are all well done though.

After the Davis baby is destroyed, others begin to appear around the country. The second film follows a renegade group of people (including Frank Davis from the first film) who are trying to prevent the government from killing the mutant babies. But at what price? Along with Frank, we now have the Scott family: Eugene Scott (played by Frederic Forrest, best known to me as the Nazi Surplus Store Owner from "Falling Down") and Jody Scott (played by the lovely and undercast Kathleen Lloyd). And the Scott family doesn't like it when you try to kill their baby! Oh, and the makeup effects of Oscar-winning Rick Baker again.This film picks up pretty much where the other left off, give or take a few months. Where the first one pushed the message of chemicals affecting unborn babies, this is more of a family message: parents should love their children regardless of who or what they are. If your child is a criminal or autistic, they're still your child and you should defend and love them, not let the government exterminate them.There's also a really subtle subplot about child molestation. Although never explicitly shown, there is good reason to believe molestation is occurring between an adult and a child family member. (I won't say who, but you should notice it as hints are dropped multiple times.) This film is paced better than the first one, and the attacks are a bit more often and slightly more gruesome (though by no means graphic). Going from a PG rating to an R was a good move, though they didn't push the rating as much as I probably would have liked. And a really strange thing happens: Frank Davis becomes known as "Frank Davis". Not "Frank", not "Mr. Davis"... but "Frank Davis" every time he is mentioned. It seems unnatural, as if somehow he is a celebrity that needs to be highlighted, like TV's Patrick Duffy or something.Although I liked this movie better than the first one, it relies heavily on the first one to understand it, so you're really stuck having to watch both if you want to "get it". The recurring characters and source of the mutants won't make sense unless you see the original. But by all means if you liked the first one, watch the second... and if you liked this one, watch the third.

The happily married couple Eugène and Jody Scott are eagerly making preparations for the birth of their first baby when Frank Davies, the unfortunate father of the first monster-baby adventure, comes to their house to warn them that their child will be a malevolent creature. He succeeds in convincing the parents that the baby should be born outside the hospital, where doctors and police men are going to kill it right after leaving the womb... After a hectic escape from the authorities, Eugène and Jody flee with their to a secret observation institute where already two companions in distress are homed. Larry Cohen's successor to his own mini cult-classic "It's Alive" is a lot more appealing than I first feared! Here, even more than in the original, Cohen gives a human and dramatic angle to the story by focusing on the initially perfect family situation of the Scotts and examining this exact same relationship afterwards! The result is a touching social drama in which the monstrous baby is secondary to the agony of parents left behind! "It Lives Again" only turns into an exciting horror movie half way through, when the 3 ferocious babies break loose and start a murder spree again. Especially in this second half, Cohen proves his brilliant horror-directing skills by suggesting a whole lot...but showing little. The kids' birthday party is an excellent example of this! This sequel is less blackly humorous than the original and it looks like the gore-budget was even smaller than four years earlier. Yet, I found it more tense than the first, with some ingeniously, but simply conceived shock-images such as the babies crawling slowly under sheets. If you're a fan of cheap B-horror and if you're familiar with the other marvelous work of Larry Cohen ("The Stuff", "God Told Me To", "Maniac Cop"...) you should definitely give this a try. I'm going to check out the final chapter "Island of the Alive" soon as well and I hope it equally entertaining.