The Films (It's Alive - 4/5, It Lives Again -2.5/5, Island of the Alive  3/5)

    I've said for probably decades now that Larry Cohen is probably one of the most underrated of American directors and screenwriters. His horror films (he also directed films in numerous genres) have always delivered on scares while blending in comedy, with solid social and political subtext creating an interesting cinematic cocktail that is distinctly Cohen.  Though not my favorite of Cohen’s films by any stretch, the It's Alive film have proven to be some of the director's greatest overall successes and a vehicle he was able to return to for 3 films in a period of over a decade, and in the Cohen tradition offer up solid scares on an oddball premise.

     It's Alive opens with Frank (John P. Ryan) and Lenore (Sharon Farrell) Davies waking in the middle of the night to Lenore being in labor.  The couple are not worried, as this is their 2nd child, and they feel they know the drill. They get ready, drop their son off with a friend, and head off to the hospital, this however, is where their lives get turned upside down. The baby is born, but is a vicious mutant creature, that immediately kills the doctors and staff in the delivery room, before making a break for it. Frank wants to assist in helping police apprehend and kill the baby, but Lenore wants to see its safe return home even though it is a mutant killer.  As it turns out some birth control she had been taking for years, had done something to her body, and caused her to give birth to such a child.

    I haven't watched It's Alive or its sequels in over 20 years so any opinions I had of the film were sort of forgotten with time. The first film I will say was oddly impressive. The premise like many of Cohen's film is silly, but here it is taken very seriously. Rick Baker returning to work for Cohen after working on other early Cohen works like Bone and Black Caesar does some solid work with the creature FX used to bring the baby to life. It certainly helps that Cohen chooses to keep the pint-sized monster in the shadows and cast in minimal light for most of the film. I think the film's strongest point is how effective it is emotionally. It has a silly B-Movie premise, but yet it makes you feel for the parents of the mutant child, how they both engage with their feelings for their child, and even in the film's final moments there are some moments of sadness between some of the characters that are quite effective.

      It Lives Again does the typical sequel thing, and gives the audience more of what the original did. In this film we see the return of John P. Ryan's Frank Davies who now roams the country trying to save other babies who are born mutated due to the birth control pills that caused his child to be born a murderous mutant. In this case his focus is first on the Scott's a couple expecting their own potentially mutant child, before the movie goes into an epic national conspiracy.

   It Lives Again has a solid premise, and for the first half an hour or so starts out quite strong. You could easily believe after the conclusion of the first film this is one direction that  Frank could end up in, but the film begins to fall apart in the 2nd half. The first film had a silly premise, but was treated seriously, and the creature was hidden in obscurity. In this 2nd film, we are given 3 mutant babies. This film both feels a lot more dull, but also a lot more scatter shot even with the increase in monster kids.

   The third film features Stephen Jarvis who is a devastated father of a mutant baby. He worked to convince the government to allow the mutants to be taken to an island to live out their natural lives. Unfortunately, their natural lives are accelerated and they have grown, begun to reproduce and are working to get back to the mainland where they begin to go on the attack, did Steven Spielberg watch this before the Lost World?

     The third film is probably the most bizarrely entertaining of the bunch. I mean it's not a great film by any means, but it's trashy fun,  and sort of what you'd expect for a film with creatures like this.   Michael Moriarty turns in a fun lead performance as is expected from his prior work with Cohen.  I remember from past experience liking this one the least, but oddly by the end of my run with these film's this one was a real crazy highlight to close things out with. I think Cohen coming back to the series 8 years later, certainly helped find fresh inspiration.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

    Scream Factory presents the 3 It's Alive film in 1:85:1 1080p AVC encoded transfers preserving the OAR of the original presentation. All 3 films have a solid presentation. Nothing life changing, but solid film like presentations with decent detail, solid blacks, and well reproduced colors.

    Audio chores are handled by a series of DTS-HD MA tracks in English. All 3 tracks are quite solid, with dialogue and score coming through nicely, and no detectable issues are apparently on my listens.

Extras (3.5/5)

    Extras include an audio commentary by Larry Cohen for each film in the series. Beyond that There is a 20 minute look back at the series, a 13 minute Q & A at a 40th Anniversary screening. Beyond that the set it loaded up with trailers, TV spots, radio spots, and still galleries.

Overall

   The It's Alive Trilogy has never been a favorite of mine, but the Scream Factory release has done a solid job restoring these for Blu-ray. The first film ends up being a solid creeper that takes a silly premise, and turns in a a reasonable scarefest out if it. The rest of the films are uneven, but have their moments.  The Blu-ray's look and sound quite decent, and come with solid extras features. If you are already a fan these come RECOMMENDED.