It Lives Again (1978)

Determined to prevent another incident, the group who battled the creatures previously spring into action when reports surface of another potential killer baby being born and bring it to an isolated study center only for one to escape which makes them try to track it down and kill it.This was quite a dull and unnecessary sequel. One of the few things that works here is the fact that the creatures are made a focal point of the for a much longer period of time than what had happened previously. Given more of an emphasis for being there in the area this time around, with the majority of the first half consisting of them getting the information out of the group and what their intentions are which carries into the need for the security at the hospital for the birth of the creature and the resulting chaos afterward. Consisting of the abduction and eventual hostage part in the truck where it really gets even bigger with the incidents in the back part of the truck, this here is a fine start to things which is later played off nicely in the later half where the creatures are loose in suburbia and have plenty of enjoyable encounters between the creatures and the swarm hunting them down. As this provides the action with some decent gore effects, these are what hold this one down over its rather large flaws. A lot of the film's problems stem from the same issue that befell the original in that there's just not a whole of interesting things going on here. Taking the guise of a loose remake where this starts off with the creatures' birth and the eventual escape from the hospital only this time it takes far longer to get to the point of the story which here makes no sense at all. The point of keeping mutant, bloodthirsty deformed freaks alive and healthy in the manner attempted here is not only colossally irresponsible but also moronic by keeping known threats to humanity alive. The fact that we don't really get much of anything about their point to be conducting the experiments on the creatures or what they hope to learn from them at the facility which makes their mission even more problematic overall. As these here are all in disservice to the pacing here, this one is just so dull and barely interesting that it feels a lot longer than the others which makes it incredibly hard to get into this one. Added together with the unimpressive action scenes that don't really mean much of anything that happens here is interesting, this one is quite the bland and unappealing effort.Rated PG: Violence and Language.

It's Alive 2 a.k.a It Lives Again, is the happy medium between the original It's Alive, which I find a little dull compared to the other two, and It's Alive Three Island of the Alive, which was much more violent and had a lot more profanity. But the plot to It lives again is nothing special: Affter his baby was killed, Frank Davis starts warning people who are ready to have a baby about what may happen, and what the government may try to do. He and a group of others devise a plan to help a pregnant woman and her husband (The Scotts) have their baby, despite the obvious fact that it will be a mutant. He uses a special truck with appropriate gear to do this. But when the baby kills the doctors, the team captures it, and takes it to a base with two other children to study it. But the government knows what is going on and is intent to stop it. When the three babies get lose, they run ramp-id on the base until the government kills all of them except the Scotts baby, Who kills Frank Davis when he tries to get it to safety. The Parents then offer themselves as bait, remembering what Frank said about the infants ability to find it's parents. The police waits in the area around a house that the Scotts stay in, while the baby makes it's way to them. Eventually it finds them, and they realize that the baby only wants their love, and they then care for it for a short time. But then the government group gases the house to poison the infant, and when the leader steps in, the child attacks him, and it's either shoot their own baby or let the man die. So in the end, Mr. Scott kills his own baby. It's a lot more tragic end in this movie, than in the first. Some may say, this movie isn't as good as the original, and it's probably not, but I say, go check it out, see for yourself...

Not really a review but some more insider info.The nursery and delivery room scenes were filmed on the third floor Labor and Delivery wing at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson AZ. I worked there at the time and one of the guys from my department played "Dr. Fairchild" as the delivery room doctor. For a while after that, we would call the switchboard and ask them to page "Dr. Fairchild" to our phone number via the overhead paging. It became an insider joke. It was hilarious to watch them film it as the hallway where they spend a long time running with the gurney is in the East basement and actually only about 30 feet long! They just kept cutting back and forth to make it seem so long.The elevator that the gurney is seen coming out of is the East wing basement passenger elevator and there is no way a gurney will fit in it. They just held the door open and started pulling the gurney out and filming.The old loading dock on the North side was the site for the "Tucson Memorial Hospital" sign seen at the beginning of the movie.They were only allowed to film for two days and then the Catholic Sisters found out what the movie was about. They then asked the production company to leave and they did the rest of the hospital scenes in a rented hotel room in Tucson. Bill, my co-worker who played "Dr Fairchild," had a copy of the script and we kept it in the department for a long time as we thought it was hilarious that a horror film was partially filmed in a Catholic hospital.I had to go see it when it came out and it was great fun to remember those two days when they turned the hospital upside down with their filming.Not a great movie but it was a "Larco Production" (Larry Cohen) and we made it a point to see anything else he produced for a while.

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