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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: October 6, 2009 Distributor: First Look Studios Director: · Josef Rusnak Cast: · Bijou Phillips · James Murray Related Sites: · IMDb: It's Alive (2009) Grade: C

Say you're watching a slasher flick, one of those un-killable killer films the great B-movie critic Joe Bob Briggs called 'Spam In A Cabin'. You get to the scene where the campers are sitting around the campfire, telling ghost stories, and one of the camp counselors says, "You know, every summer this supernaturally strong and invulnerable madman in a hockey mask runs amok through these very woods and, like, goes on a bloody rampage, killing everyone in sight. Seriously."

In the real world, the next sound heard after 'bloody rampage' and 'these very woods' would be the screaming of a dozen teenagers getting out of the kill zone as fast as possible. And no, not even the most hormonally charged couples waste time finding an out-of-the-way place to make love. They leave with a quickness, in a wake of peeling rubber and spinning gravel and dust. The killer, watching from the woods, throws his machete to the ground in disgust and disappointment. The End.

Zombie movies: everyone knows shooting a zombie in the head is one of the few sure ways to put the shambling, moaning undead down, yet people in zombie movies evidently live in a universe without newfangled gadgets like television or somehow do without fancy shopping malls with multiplex picture shows, so the guy on the couch watching these movies finds himself spitting popcorn and shouting 'Head shot! Head shot!' every time the hero opens fire and wonders aloud why these strangely decomposing cannibals don't go down.

It's the illogic that stops you. However fantastic the setting or implausible the premise, the trick is the suspension of disbelief allowing the viewer to accept the fantasy. If, for example, viewers are presented with a fictional world similar to our own, a world where people are people, then people are going to behave in certain ways under certain conditions. Maniac in the woods? Okay, but since Mister Hockey Mask out there strolls along at about two miles per hour, tops, we'll just stay together as a group and walk away quickly. Zombies? Head shot! Head shot! You get the idea. Fiction of any sort—books, films, live theater—is like a bubble or balloon. A character's inexplicable action or the introduction of an illogical plot device pricks the bubble, pops the balloon, and ruins the experience. A character can be brave or cowardly, wise or foolish, but he or she can't be impossible. He or she can't say or do things completely at odds with human nature unless, of course, the character isn't human -- but even then, actions and dialogue are bound by the constraints of the imaginary world the filmmaker makes for us. A George Romero zombie, for example, would never break into a sprint or pause from a feeding frenzy to give an eloquent speech arguing undead rights.

Which brings us to the recent, 2008 remake of "It's Alive," directed by Josef Rusnak, starring Bijou Phillips and James Murray. Mutant killer baby? No problem. Theaters have been fairly flooded with bad seed killer kid movies lately, including "The Unborn" and "Orphan," and many of us old enough to remember Larry Cohen's 1974 original remember it fondly. Besides, Bijou Phillips is fun to watch in anything, and the presence of a number of familiar journeyman actors in the cast assures professionalism. Acting isn't the problem.

The problem is the script. The script for "It's Alive" forces the actors into saying and doing things and failing to say and do things most human beings would say and do (or not say or do) under even remotely similar, real world circumstances. For example, four operating room personnel at a public hospital in the middle of a medium-sized town are horribly murdered. Did I write 'murdered'? Sorry, what I meant to write was 'massacred'. With teeth and claws. Blood and body parts everywhere. In our world: whole armies of news crews and cops converging on the scene, cries from the crowd of 'OMG!' 'WTF!' In It's Alive world? Er, not so much.

A fetus comes to full term after only six months. Our world? The medical community is rocked by the implications. The mother-to-be is emergency airlifted to Geneva or some other exotic locale for closer study. Her physician goes on a worldwide book tour. The soon-to-be-rich young couple strike a deal for a new reality show, promising to edge out Octomom and other kid litter shows in the ratings. "It's Alive" world? The doctor assures the mother the baby is fine, nothing wrong here.

Try this: while a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy watches, his cat is suddenly snatched out of sight and dragged under his bed, never to be seen alive again. The face of the boy (Raphael Coleman) registers surprise, fear, and consternation. He doesn't mention the incident to anyone. One more time: a young boy doesn't say anything to anyone when his cat is presumably eaten by an unidentifiable something hiding under his bed. So why do the characters in this movie say and do the things they do? Because it's in the script. Not good enough. Never good enough. To work, a story must ring true. This didn't, not once.

Scary? Truthfully, sometimes yes. The killer mutant baby attack scenes are well-executed. And yes, I've waited my whole life to write the sentence, 'The killer mutant baby attack scenes are well-executed'.