Synopsis: Late one
night, Lenore Davis (Sharon Farrell) goes into labour. Her husband, Frank (John P. Ryan),
wakes the couple’s eleven-year-old son, Chris (Daniel Holzman), and tells him that he
must get dressed. On their way to the hospital, Frank and Lenore drop Chris off at the
home of their friend, Charley (William Wellman Jr). Initially, everything seems to be
fine, but as the labour progresses Lenore becomes convinced that something is wrong. She
tries to convey her fears to her doctor but he dismisses them, telling her that the only
problem is that her baby is very big. Out in the corridor, Frank paces aimlessly, stopping
dead when he sees someone stagger from the labour ward and collapse. Running to the fallen
man, Frank sees that his face and neck have been ripped open. Terrified for Lenore, Frank
rushes into the ward, where he finds a scene of carnage: the entire obstetrics team is
dead, while Lenore, still strapped to the delivery table, screams for her baby. But there
is no sign of the child…. Police Lieutenant Perkins (James Dixon) is placed in charge
of the investigation. Frank insists that the baby has been abducted, and threatens to sue
the hospital. Perkins tells him that the only way out of the delivery room was via a
skylight too small for an adult person to fit through. Dr Norton (Shamus Locke) asks Frank
and Lenore to undergo a series of tests. Frank refuses angrily. Ignoring him, Norton asks
Lenore whether she could have been exposed to radioactivity during her pregnancy, as the
only explanation he can offer is that some sort of genetic damage caused the baby to be
born mutated. When Frank rejects this notion, Norton points out that, early in
Lenore’s pregnancy, the Davises inquired about a possible abortion. Frank denies that
there was a medical reason for this. When Perkins and Norton leave the Davises alone,
Frank speaks bitterly of their apparent determination to blame them for the baby’s
condition. Lenore observes wearily that they are the child’s parents. When
Frank rejoins the other two men, Perkins tells him that the baby must be killed. Frank
says indifferently that he doesn’t care, that the child is nothing to do with him.
He then leaves the hospital. As he does so, the bushes at the front of the building begin
to rustle…. As he drives home, Frank is horrified to hear a radio newsreader name him
and Lenore as the "killer baby"’s parents. The next morning, a woman hears
a baby crying near her home, and makes the fatal error of looking for it…. Frank goes
to work. His boss, Bob Clayton (Guy Stockwell), expresses sympathy for him, but suggests
that he take his accrued vacation time. Frank begs to be allowed to stay at work, saying
he needs the distraction, but Clayton tells him that he is now too controversial to have a
place in public relations. As Frank leaves, Clayton tells his secretary to have his desk
cleaned out. Frank picks Lenore up from the hospital. Chris phones, wanting to know when
he can come home. Frank tells him that the baby is sick and must stay at the hospital.
Charley, who has been keeping Chris away from the TV and the papers, offers to take the
boy on a short fishing-trip. Another dead body is found. Lenore’s nurse breaks this
news to her, trying to get her to talk about how she feels. Lenore discovers that the
woman has a concealed tape recorder, and Frank throws her out. Meanwhile, the baby
continues its journey across the city, breaking into a milk delivery van to look for food.
Unfortunately for the milkman, he discovers it there….
Comments: Nobody makes
films like this anymore…. Actually, that’s probably a stupid thing to
say, since I’m not sure anyone ever did make films quite like Larry Cohen; certainly
not like the ones he made in his "monster" phase. It’s Alive is
quintessential Cohen: an outrageous premise, slapdash execution, a surprisingly effective
mixing of humour and horror and, beneath all this, if you choose to look for it, an
unexpectedly thoughtful message. It’s probably safe to assume that It’s Alive
is etched in most people’s memories as "the mutant killer baby film". While
it’s quite possible to watch and enjoy the film on that level alone, if you’re
willing to dig a little deeper you’ll find an examination of the joys and pains of
parenthood, an impassioned plea for tolerance and some devastating social criticism. At
its most serious, It’s Alive examines the consequences for the parents of a
child when, as the euphemism would have it, "something goes wrong"; how society
reacts to them; and most importantly, how they react to each other. The film suggests, not
unreasonably, that the predominant emotion of a parent whose child is born with some kind
of disability is guilt. Certainly this is true of the Davises, Frank in particular.
No concrete reason for the child being born the way it was is ever given, although various
hints are built into the screenplay, varying from the firmly biological to the distinctly
esoteric. This lack of a first cause cuts right to the heart of the problem: when there is
nothing obvious to blame, people tend to blame themselves or, even more tragically, each
other. In its examination of this heart-rending situation, It’s Alive chooses
to focus upon the father, Frank Davis, initially his own child’s deadliest enemy,
finally its desperate if unavailing protector.
Once it becomes apparent that, as the
film’s tagline puts it, "There’s something wrong with the Davis baby",
Frank’s response is swift and decisive: it is to reject the infant on every level.
Initially, Frank is willing to exempt Lenore from responsibility, too. When Dr Norton
suggests "a series of tests", Frank reacts with indignation: "Can you
imagine those guys trying to blame us?" Lenore, however, is having none of it.
"We are the parents," she says. This simple response has an electric
effect upon Frank. Unable to accept that "we" are responsible, he begins, in a
classic example of transference, to put all the blame for what has happened upon Lenore.
(Frank’s shift in attitude is symbolised by his pulling the curtain around his
wife’s hospital bed, even though she has a private room.) At the same time, Frank
becomes fixated upon proving that the baby is none of his fault. When Perkins tells
him, apologetically but firmly, that the baby must be killed, he responds with an
elaborate shrug. "I don’t care." Not content with this, Frank later
insists upon joining the manhunt, finally deciding that he himself will be the one to kill
the child. This, he reasons, will show everyone that he feels as they do, that he’s no
different from anyone else. "No-one’s blaming you," people tell
Frank repeatedly. "It's no-one's fault." At heart, however, Frank simply
cannot accept this. The reasons for this are uncertain, but part of it at least is guilt
over his status as reluctant parent. When Dr Norton observes that, early in Lenore’s
pregnancy, the Davises inquired about an abortion, Frank’s reaction is so very
defensive that we know instantly that the idea was entirely his, and not Lenore’s.
(Some critics have interpreted It’s Alive as an anti-abortion polemic, arguing
that it is the consideration of a termination – the sense that it was unwanted in
utero – that causes the baby to be born the way it is. While Frank Davis might
perhaps feel that way, Larry Cohen’s stance is, I think, more complex. More on this
later.) Guilt then, is what drives Frank: guilt at the pregnancy’s beginning, guilt
at its outcome. This is made painfully clear when, in a rambling speech, Frank confesses
that as a child he thought Frankenstein (Frankenstein) was "the monster".
It was only as an adult that he realised that "Frankenstein" was the…. He
hesitates here, before pronouncing the word "doctor", and we feel that the word
that first came into his mind might have been "father". (When he does say
"doctor", Norton looks decidedly uncomfortable.) As the film progresses, we come
to understand that Frank’s self-image, his self-worth, his manhood, have been
dealt an intolerable blow by the birth of this child. The only way he can obliterate the
stain is by obliterating the thing that caused it. To facilitate this, Frank’s
rejection of the baby becomes not just emotional but, still more disturbingly, biological.
When the scientist asking Frank to sign the baby’s body over to him remarks,
"After all, you are its father", Frank recoils. "It’s not my
child," he insists. Later, he demands to know why everyone is looking at him
that way, "Like it’s my own flesh and blood! It’s not: it’s nothing
to do with me!" The final, the ultimate act of repudiation comes when Frank tries to
convince Chris that the baby is nothing to do with him either: "It’s no relation
to us. It can’t be." The baby, wounded and panic-stricken, has
killed the Davises’ friend, Charley. "Look at what your baby
did!" Frank flings at Lenore, and the betrayal is complete. Frank has, in essence,
denied his son "three times by morning"….
The falseness of Frank’s position is
made apparent by the attitudes of Lenore and Chris. No thought of denial ever crosses
Lenore’s mind. Whatever it is, whatever it has done, she wants her baby. (Ordinarily,
I find this kind of "Motherhood uber alles" attitude rather irritating;
here, however, it is woven with care into the overall texture of the film.) Alone of the
characters in the film, Lenore worries about what the child is feeling.
"He’s different – he’s frightened," she tries to tell
Frank. (Significantly, he cuts her off, insisting that, "You’re exhausted –
you don’t know what you’re saying.") Lenore also blames herself for the
child’s condition. Still more distressingly, she becomes aware that Frank blames her
too, almost before he’s aware of it himself. "You’re not scared of me, are
you?" are her first words to him when they are alone together. Like her husband,
Lenore reacts to the situation by trying to demonstrate how "normal" she is,
what a "typical" couple she and Frank are. In a scene both heart-breaking and
embarrassing, Lenore interrupts the meeting of Frank, Norton and the scientist, laughing
and making small talk before inviting her husband’s "guests" to join them
for "some nice lamb chops and a bottle of Beaujolais". (She does not know, of
course, that Frank has just signed her baby’s body over to his "guests".)
Lenore maintains this determinedly cheerful, "everything's just fine"
pose for so long that the audience begins to fear for her sanity. It comes as a pleasant
surprise when we learn that, not only is she in full possession of her faculties, but she
has, in fact, been one jump ahead of her husband all along.
In the course of the story, it becomes
obvious that, through instinct alone, the baby is seeking its family. It first tracks down
Chris, but loses him when Charley takes him on the fishing-trip. It is next found at what
turns out to be Chris’s school, where it kills a policeman foolish enough to corner
it. Then, although the manhunt intensifies, it seems to disappear. Our first clue to its
whereabouts comes with the revelation that Lenore Davis seems to be buying an awful lot of
milk these days…. The baby has, indeed, found its way home, and Lenore has taken it
in, keeping it in the one place so obvious that no-one thought to look there: the nursery.
So consumed by his own emotions is Frank that it is a considerable time before the
significance of Lenore’s behaviour dawns upon him. (There is a wonderful moment when
Frank, lost in thought, stumbles over half a dozen empty milk bottles and still
doesn’t figure out what’s going on.) From Lenore’s perspective, everything
is now as it should be. But Frank has other ideas. As soon as he learns of the baby’s
whereabouts, he goes for his gun. As Lenore vainly tries to stop him ("It’s a boy
– did you know?" she cries despairingly), Frank corners the baby in the
basement where, unbeknownst to his parents, Chris has already encountered it. Frank opens
fire, injuring the baby, which flees. It is at this point that Frank tries to disassociate
himself and his eldest son from "Lenore’s baby". Chris, however, knows
better. Although kept ignorant of the full story, Chris is aware that there’s
something wrong with the baby. Despite this, when he comes upon it in the basement he
doesn’t see a "monster", a "freak", a "killer"; he just
sees his baby brother. His first and only thought is to make contact with it.
Chris’s unhesitating acceptance of his sibling sends Frank into his final frenzy.
Learning that the baby has retreated to the sewer system, he insists on being given a gun
and joining in the final manhunt. "You’ve just got to be the one to do it,
don’t you?" says Perkins, reluctantly acceding to Frank’s demands. And it
is Frank, rifle in hand, who locates the baby in its subterranean lair.
But confronted by the wounded, terrified,
sobbing baby – his baby – Frank can’t do it. Instead, he finds
himself uttering soft sounds of reassurance, wrapping the injured creature in his jacket,
cradling it in his arms. All of his twisted, dammed up emotion finally released, Frank
wants nothing more than to protect the child, save it from the mob howling for its blood;
the mob he was leading. Tragically, however, despite Frank’s desperate pleas
for understanding and his insistence that if they want to shoot the baby they’ll have
to shoot him too, the forces ranged in opposition are just too great. (There is some
consolation in the fact that the baby manages to take out the odious Norton before being
taken out itself.) Lenore learns of Frank’s defiant stand via the police radio, and
arrives on the scene in time to see him risking his life for his child’s. If Frank
cannot save the baby, his actions have at least saved his marriage, his family.
Frank’s acceptance of the baby is the
culminating moment of the film’s underlying premise which, put simply, is that given
a chance – given help and support and above all, understanding and compassion –
families are capable of coping with pretty much anything. Yet fiercely pro-family as it
is, It’s Alive is never simplistic. Perhaps the most praiseworthy aspect of
the film is the way that it acknowledges what most films – hell, what most people
– cannot or will not: that parenthood is neither easy nor a source of unalloyed joy.
I find few things more exasperating than the insistence that everyone is supposed
to want children, and that not only does not wanting them prove there’s
something wrong with you, that even having reservations is, at best, highly suspect. This
black-and-white view of the world is, of course, nonsense. Not only does it make no
allowance for individual character or circumstances, it also overlooks a simple truth:
that emotionally, as in every other way, human beings are incredibly complex, and
consequently quite capable of feeling half a dozen different things at once, all of them
contradictory. Sure, having children can bring feelings of joy, pride, excitement,
fulfillment; but doubt, fear, anger and frustration are more than likely to be mixed in
there too, and anyone who doesn’t recognise the fact must be willfully blind. I doubt
that there’s a parent on the face of the planet who, no matter how much they love
their kids, hasn’t occasionally nursed a fantasy about strangling the little buggers.
I personally think that this is both natural and healthy, and I suspect that Larry Cohen
does too. (I’d lay you odds, by the way, that Cohen has children himself.) Throughout
It’s Alive, the pains and contradictions of parenthood are well and
sympathetically addressed, primarily, of course, via the character of Frank Davis. That
Frank considers abortion an option is not, I believe, "the reason" the baby is
born the way it is. Rather, this plot point is there to illustrate one of the film’s
main themes: that it is entirely possible to be both a reluctant parent and a good parent.
Far from being mutually exclusive, these two states of mind may be inexorably entwined,
the reluctance stemming not just from an unwillingness to take on the responsibilities of
parenthood, but from the recognition of just how big a responsibility having a child is.
In support of this argument, the film’s dialogue reveals that Chris Davis, too, was
an "unwanted" child; that Frank felt "trapped" by Lenore’s
pregnancy, "tied down" by his baby son’s existence. Yet clearly Chris has
grown up to be a smart and stable kid, who has a warm and loving relationship with both
his parents. The film insists that as long as a child is loved, knows that it is
loved, the doubts, fears and frustrations will do no harm. Conversely, the film also
argues that it is society’s unloved children who will, inevitably, grow up to be its
"monsters".
Throughout It’s Alive, Frank
Davis’s emotional torments are thrown into relief by the undiluted negativity of the
people around him. At no point in the film does anyone other than Lenore and, ultimately,
Frank suggest saving the baby. From the first moment, everyone else wants it
killed. The reasons for this vary, some of them being pure self-interest. The
manufacturers of Lenore’s newly marketed (and obviously faulty) birth-control pills,
for instance, want the child not just killed but expunged, so that no culpability can be
proved. A group of scientists wants to study "this phenomenon", but even they
aren’t interested in keeping it alive: they just want Frank to sign over the body.
(One of them wants the police to gas the child rather than shoot it, because---well, you
know….) The police, more reasonably, simply want the killing spree stopped,
particularly after the baby kills one of their own. Lieutenant Perkins’ first words
on the subject are "When we find it, we’re gunna have to destroy it", a
feeling reiterated, more passionately, during the final confrontation: "It can’t
be saved, it’s gotta die." Dr Norton (who, we learn, was taking kickbacks
from the pharmaceutical company) is also unequivocal, referring to the baby as "an
animal", while the climactic scene sees him demanding in a voice thick with loathing,
"Kill it! Kill it!" These emotive reactions from people of whom you would
expect professional detachment give the viewer pause. Clearly, these are not just
"professional opinions"; there is something else going on here, something deeper
and much uglier: an instinctive, even animalistic desire to destroy what is different. It
is here that It’s Alive’s most serious theme emerges. How does society
react to those who are "different"? In Larry Cohen’s opinion, very badly
indeed. While he uses the baby as an extreme case, Cohen scatters other, more subtle
criticisms throughout his screenplay. For example, in the scene between Frank and his
boss, Clayton, in a clumsy effort at consolation, refers to another co-worker with "a
retarded kid", pointing out that he "insists on keeping him in the house. No-one
thinks anything of that," he adds hastily. Possibly not, but the parents’
decision to care for the child themselves rather than, presumably, putting him in some
kind of home is clearly considered unusual, even downright weird.
This point is just the tip of the Cohen
iceberg. It’s Alive is comprehensively critical of the world in which its
story is set. Early in the film, a group of expectant fathers shakes its collective head
over the state of Los Angeles. One remarks on the amount of lead in the environment,
another on the smog that envelops their city. ("Fine world to bring a kid into,"
comments Frank.) As the film progresses, we understand that these external problems are
merely the physical symptoms of a society that is spiritually sick. Almost everyone in the
film is out for him or herself. One of the expectant fathers uses the time of his
wife’s labour to advertise his exterminators’ business. Frank’s boss reacts
to his employee’s tragedy by sacking him. (It is in this scene that Frank makes his
one and only effort to put his true feelings into words: "I don’t what to do
– how to behave…." Acutely embarrassed, Bob Clayton interrupts with
a forced laugh and the suggestion that Frank get "a good PR firm" to handle the
situation. "That’s very funny," responds Frank through teeth
clenched so hard it’s a wonder it didn’t induce lockjaw.) Lenore’s nurse
turns out to be a part-time freelance writer, who tries to exploit her professional
appointment to "get an exclusive", driving Lenore into screaming hysterics in
the process. The head of the pharmaceutical company acknowledges that his drugs may be
responsible for the existence of the baby, but his only concern is the avoidance of
lawsuits; while Norton collaborates in the cover-up. Worst of all, however, is that the
society depicted is a place where children simply aren’t welcome – and not just
children who are "different", either. In response to Norton’s barbed
observation that he and Lenore "inquired about abortion", Frank says
defensively, "Doesn’t everyone inquire these days?" When Frank goes
on to explain that he and Lenore just decided to have the baby, Lieutenant Perkins chips
in with, "We all make mistakes." He apologises immediately, but the sentiment
lingers. We later learn that Perkins’ wife is eight months pregnant herself, and that
she lost their previous child. The colleague to whom Perkins confides this responds
unconcernedly, "People without children don’t know how lucky they are."
This blinkered callousness occurs again and again throughout the film. In the face of it,
the baby seems not just a product of his environment, but a reaction to it. The
exterminator-father tells of a spray meant to kill roaches, but which instead resulted in
their being born "bigger, stronger, harder to kill". This would seem to account
for the baby’s existence, too. Needing to survive in a world both physically and
emotionally polluted, he has indeed been born "bigger and stronger" and, above
all, with the innate ability to do it to them before they do it to him. The suggestion
that the baby is not just mutated but evolved is present in a minor
character’s remark about the human race "adapting" to the contaminated
state of the world. Interestingly enough, it was this extremely muted but inarguably
positive interpretation of the film’s events that Cohen chose to run with in the
sequel, It Lives Again.
It’s Alive is probably
Larry Cohen’s best known film. It is certainly his most representative, chock full of
both his strengths and his flaws as a film-maker, although in my opinion its positives
easily outweigh its negatives. On the debit side, the main problem is the pacing of the
story, with some scenes dragging unnecessarily, others thrown together so rapidly that
their individual impact is diluted. Still, this is a minor point when you contrast it with
the film’s virtues. As I have already spelled out (to quite unnecessary
length!), the seriousness of the story’s themes, and the compassion with which they
are handled, lifts It’s Alive out of the realm of the pure exploitation film,
no matter how firmly its central premise might seem to put it there. Another intriguing
aspect of the film is its stringent criticism of the medical profession; or at least, of
those representatives of the profession who have lost sight of the stern Hippocratic
warning, "First do no harm". This initially becomes apparent in the labour ward,
when we realise that Lenore’s obstetrician has more or less the same professional
attitude as John Cleese’s character in The Meaning Of Life. Again and again,
Lenore tries to express her conviction that something is badly wrong, but is brushed aside
with patronising small talk. (It is, quite frankly, some satisfaction when this smug
know-it-all becomes the baby’s first victim.) Lenore’s desperate pleas have
alerted us to another fact: that throughout her pregnancy, she tried to tell them
that it was different this time, but they wouldn’t listen to her…. This
is our first introduction to Dr Norton, who we learn has been dosing his patients with
inadequately tested drugs in return for substantial payments. The payments come courtesy
of a pharmaceutical company whose response to the baby’s existence is not to order a
recall of its products, not to implement a more stringent testing regime, but to instigate
a cover-up. (Given the film’s production date, it comes as no surprise when
government involvement is hinted at.) Overall, this plot thread seems less a criticism of
the medical profession per se, and more like just another layer of Cohen’s
main argument: that society, as a whole, simply doesn’t care enough, not even the
people who are, after all, paid to care.
One of the things I like best about It’s
Alive is its shifts in mood. The scene in the delivery room, with the obstetrics team
slaughtered and Lenore, locked in the stirrups and strapped to the delivery table,
screaming in pain and terror, is almost Cronenbergian. At the same time, the film contains
some of Larry Cohen’s most memorable visual gags: a camera pan past a van emblazoned
with the words STOP CHILDREN, for instance; or most unforgettably of all, a dozen members
of the LAPD, armed and definitely dangerous, pouring into someone’s backyard and
finding – a perfectly normal baby. (As you might imagine, the child looks somewhat
taken aback by this sudden invasion.) Proving that Larry Cohen knows his monster film
history, the final scenes of It’s Alive take place in a Los Angeles storm
sewer, on the precise spot used in the climax of one of the best monster films of all, Them!
John P. Ryan is excellent as Frank Davis, giving an intense, layered performance that
helps the film over its, shall we say, more improbable moments; and he is well
supported by Sharon Farrell and James Dixon in particular. Dixon, a Cohen regular, gets
perhaps his meatiest role here as Lieutenant Perkins, and gives a nicely shaded
performance. The film benefits enormously from a rich score by Bernard Herrmann, while the
special effects were an early effort by Rick Baker, who had clearly taken the painful
lessons of Octaman to heart: the baby is kept offscreen 98% of the time, and not
depicted with any clarity the rest of the time. Thus, it remains an unnerving presence.
(In It Lives Again, we have multiple babies that are seen way too often and way too
clearly; the film suffers accordingly.) One of the other, ah, "pleasures" of It’s
Alive is its role as a time-capsule for the year 1974. I can think of few films that
illustrate so thoroughly the appalling extremes of early seventies fashion, both in décor
and clothing. Check out, for instance, Bob Clayton’s office, or the lurid
mustard-coloured curtains mysteriously present both in the Davises’ living-room and
Lenore’s hospital room. Better yet, take a good look at what Frank Davis chooses to
wear to the hospital in the opening sequence – although you might want to don your
sunglasses before you do. (As the baby cuts a swathe through the population of west Lost
Angeles, you begin to feel that it might have been sent by the fashion police.) In short,
it’s entirely possible to enjoy It’s Alive without taking the film
anywhere near as seriously as I do. Important themes and social criticisms aside, this is,
after all, a film about a mutant killer baby. The sight of this infant, teeth and
claws at the ready, disposing of adult after adult, is as entertaining as it is
ridiculous. Even so, there’s no denying the purity of Larry Cohen’s intentions
here. So laugh at the film if you have to, but at the same time, spare a thought for the
outsiders of our society. After all, mutant killer babies need love too.
Footnote: This review
is dedicated to my sister-in-law, Rosemary, who gave birth to my nephew, David, on March
31st; and to my brother, Ross, who chose to be present at the birth rather than
attend a Cinematheque screening of It’s Alive with me. There’s no
accounting for taste, I guess….
|
Director: Larry
Cohen