Sadly, Cohen's directorial skills never quite matched the sheer outrageous imagination of his scripts.......but to to be fair, the scrappy, independent-minded Cohen worked with minuscule budgets and shot his films on the fly in real locations.
And unlike the graduate film school navel-gazers and pretentious, no-talent posers who pass themselves off an Independent filmmakers today, Larry Cohen is a born storyteller.........and what nutty stories he could tell.
"It's Alive" may stand as Cohen's most memorable, singular achievement......as much a landmark in his body of work as "The Nutty Professor" is for Jerry Lewis.....
It took Warner Brothers almost a year to realize what it had in Cohen's horror opus about the birth of a monstrous, mutant baby who murders the doctor and nurses in its delivery room, chews off its umbilical cord and goes on a killing rampage throughout Los Angeles. After throwing it on a double feature with another horror film, Warners brought the movie back all by itself, with a catchy new ad campaign....("there's only one thing wrong with the Davis baby....it's alive....")
Audiences ate it up. How could they not fall in love with a film that kicks off with the ominous dread of a Bernard Herrmann score? (Accompanied by the clever visual of a cluster of searchlights.....accomplished by Cohen and his friends waving flashlights around in a basement....)
After Cohen's monster baby comes snarling out of the womb and racks up a body count, it leaves its poor shell shocked parents (Sharon Farrell, John Ryan) in various states of denial, guilt, grief, rage and ultimately....parental instinct. Cohen always recognized and showcased the unsung talents of second-tier actors and Farrell and Ryan's work here is worthy of any mainstream, big budget studio film. Through them, you feel all the confusion and terror first hand.....
The film wisely restricts itself to fleeting glimpses of the baby, a truly nightmarish puppet created by make up effects wiz Rick Baker. This "unseen" Val Lewton approach, combined with the ever present suspenseful throb of the Herrmann score serves to work on an audience's nerves and envelop the film in a perpetual aura of tragic gloom.
Early on in the movie, Cohen vaguely implies the baby might be nature's response to the toxic pollution spread by mankind......or like the afflicted children of Thalidomide, a byproduct of a Big Pharma pre-natal medication gone awry. (Whichever of those reasons you prefer, the film's wrenching conclusion gives you both finality and unease....)
For a great Halloween week movie night, we highly recommend you take on baby-sitting Larry Cohen's little bundle of joy......4 stars (****).... for.a few of the scary scenes here, you may need diapers more than the baby.....(and yet it's PG, so fun for all....)
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