'It's Alive!'

This film was included on a DVD along with another wretched American-International release, YEAR 2889. Both were made by a company called Azalea Pictures--who produced only about a dozen films and several of them were even worse than these two!! MARS NEED WOMEN and ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS actually manage to be even worse!! Of the two film on the disk, IT'S ALIVE is definitely the better film--but this is like comparing the Black Plague to Ebola--they're both rather nasty!

A couple from New York gets lost in the Ozarks (that probably happens all the time) and wander down the wrong road. When they meet up with a guy who offers to help, he turns out to be a maniac who wants to feed him to his "pet"--a primordial creature who is seemingly indestructible. Most of the film they are kept locked in a cave and it does manage to have some genuinely scary moments--until you see the creature! Instead of causing panic or screams, most who see it would probably laugh out loud as it looks as if they spent about $30 assembling a costume out of stuff they found lying around the house or in a junk shop! It's too bad, as apart from the 'monster', the film has a scary atmosphere and a certain low-budget charm. In particular, the first victim of the monster is someone who is such a jerk that the audience will no doubt enjoy this scene much more than if it had just been the stereotypical victim. Still, this isn't enough to salvage the film. It still has the look of a 4th-rate drive-in film--the type movie that makes Roger Corman's old horror films look like classics!

Worth a peek if you are a fan of bad films--otherwise see it at your own risk.