This remake of Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE represents what is often wrong with remakes. It strips away the wit and gravity of Cohen's socially conscious original and replaces it with a young, good looking cast, a script devoid of any social relevance and a CGI baby.
University student Lenore postpones her education to move in with boyfriend and father Frank and his younger brother Chris in an attempt to give birth and become a mother with as little distraction as possible. Unfortunately the baby has plans of its own. Due to the baby doubling in size the doctor decides a C-Section is needed even though Lenore is only six months pregnant. While cutting the umbilical cord the operating staff leans first hand that the baby has a taste for human flesh and a desire to kill all creatures great and small. Suppressing the memory of the violent deaths of doctors and nurses, Lenore takes the new born home where she is confronted by the truth of her mutant baby, as the police look for the killer.
There's not much to this film. Mother loves mutant baby. Mutant baby kills mom's friends. Mother covers up murders. Boyfriend and little brother become suspicious. Gone is the black humour of the original. Save for a very short scene, gone too is the reversal of how the father sees his progeny, a plot point that helped elevate the original's B film status to something with more substance than the plot synopsis of killer baby suggests. The remake's characters aren't at all likeable so the viewer doesn't care what happens to them. The film isn't suspenseful and all we have left to look forward to are a few bloody kills.
The US / UK / Belgrade production makes everything off kilter. The film takes place in New Mexico but the attempted south west accents by the supporting cast are off (the intonation especially, the actors seemingly are trying too hard to sound American), the university and hospital obviously are not in the US and dialogue scenes that take place in a moving vehicle are shot against a blue screen.
* out of ****
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