one of my absolute favorites!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

After the first film It's Alive about a mutant baby that's a real killer fresh from the womb, it was decided a sequel was in order. The first must have made a few dollars, that is how these things are decided.Returning from the first film is John P. Ryan the father who killed his own mutant and now has a mission in life, maybe to save others who are now showing up in the population. Which is why he visits Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd another expectant set of parents.After that things get real silly as the all seeing government in the person of John Marley gets into the act. There's also an institute that wants to house and study the mutants that's headed by Andrew Duggan. All these plot elements combine for one bloody ending.Not that the first film was a world beater, but it's Citizen Kane next to this.

"It Lives Again" is a very consistent sequel to the 1974 original "It's Alive". Of course it is, since both films are written, directed and produced by Larry Cohen. He picks things up after the events of the first film, by having Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) - father of the Davis monster baby which was killed at the end of the first film - visit soon-to-be parents Eugene & Jody Scott (Frederic Forest & Kathleen Lloyd). Davis suspects that their baby will be of the same mutant kind of offspring and offers his help (together with a team of doctors, operating outside the authorities' knowledge). For what they want to do, is to save the baby in order for it to live, while the authorities want to exterminate this sudden rash of mutant newborns. That in itself is an original spin on things, and one way for this sequel to differentiate itself from the original. Another thing being that there are not one but three monster babies this time. Also, this time the script expands a little further on the human drama, which wasn't a bad choice of Cohen. The concept of mutant killer babies remains as (un)convincing as it was in the first film. So does the movie's ecological/pharmaceutical message. It's just something you'll have to fly with, as both films play things with a straight face. "It Lives Again" has a slightly higher pace to the events than the original had and about the same production values, making it a worthwhile sequel that's pretty much on par with the original. At the time young SFX artist Rick Baker returned to create the killer babies (don't expect his best work here; he was only getting started). So does composer Bernard Herrmann, who delivers a tense musical score just as decent as he did on the first film. So, the outcome is simple: if you've enjoyed the first film, go ahead and enjoy this sequel. If, however, the concept of killer mutant babies doesn't appeal to you, then you shouldn't bother watching any of these three Larry Cohen films (the third one being "Island of the Alive" from 1987).

Stars: Frederic Forest, Kathleen Lloyd and John P. Ryan.A government conspiracy to kill all of the mutated babies has Frank Davis (Ryan) helping a pregnant couple out and stopping them from going through what he did. The first 15 minutes of the film are Frank talking to the couple at their baby shower and it is actually the 15 most enjoyable minutes in the film. Larry Cohen gives us an unneeded second dosage of similar material that is neither an improvement nor worse than the first one. Some people might enjoy this better for more screen time for the babies, and some may enjoy it less for rehashing material from the first. I liked it OK, but it was nothing special.My rating: ** out of ****. 90 mins. R for violence

It's Alive epitomizes the realization of the perennial fears: this could really happen and the (Frankenstien-esqe) ideal of setting something in motion that cannot be controlled or committing an act that you cannot repeal or take back. The First Its alive is truly an epic, we have Davis wanting to kill his monster-baby and evolving to the point of wanting to protect it--an adroit display of humanism. It Lives Again multiplies the fears of the first film exponentially by 3 (there are three babies) and the motives of the main characters evolve as well.Part 3 still manages to pull on my heart-strings yet its tired-feeling. I look beyond the technical deficiencies of all three films and am captivated my their magic. Somehow fans allow themselves to watch King Kong 1933, Phantom of the Opera 1925, The Lost World 1925, and Niosferatu 1922 and three of these films don't have sound and all are shot in black and white and King Kong's effects are far out-dated. We have to look beyond a lot of things to really, to be carried away . . . too often our expectations are too high and we're not humbled in our approach to these genre pictures. A lot of us don't go to church because we feel its boring because there's nothing there . . . same with the movies . . . we have to allow ourselves to feel sometimes what's really there in order to love the films.