If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This rather dumb, I even daresay downright imbecilic, flick is a prototypic example of why people righteously hate horror movie remakes. And yet, I started watching it with a very open mindset and actually hoped for a pleasant surprise. Why? Because, for once, it's not just another redundant remake of a bona fide genre classic that totally doesn't need an update version. Like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Friday the 13th", for example. Why should they be remade? The original "It's Alive", on the other hand, was an extremely low-budgeted and often clumsily put together obscure cult gem from the early 1970's! That's an ideal film to bring to the attention of wider horror audiences through a remake. Unfortunately, it turned out a total failure of a film, with an insubstantial script, a total lack of tension and atmosphere and embarrassing gore/splatter effects. Bijou Philips gives birth to a baby 'only a mother could love'. The offspring immediately slaughters all the hospital staff in the delivery room and, since it's so exceptionally large and overdeveloped, it also regularly needs extra snacks like psychiatrists, bimbo blond friends and stoner boyfriends. Mommy carefully cleans up the mess junior makes (and doesn't even seem to worry that much) and daddy doesn't seem to have clue of what's going on. The monster baby is mainly kept off-screen, maybe for the best, and all the CGI butchering effects are pathetic. "It's Alive" couldn't even scare an infant. The cute Bijou Philips tries hard to make her character plausible, but the script is simply too idiotic. Larry Cohen, writer/director of the original as well as numerous other cult classics, co-wrote the script of this inferior remake, strangely enough. Perhaps he deliberately sabotaged the whole thing, hoping people would take the effort to check out the original again instead. Good job, Larry, it worked!

Bijou Phillips is pregnant about six months but the infant inside is growing at an abnormal rate and must be taken out due to the pain inflicted on the mother. Shortly after its birth via C-section, the entire hospital staff is slaughtered by the baby, but Phillips cannot recollect (or has simply blocked the whole incident out) what happened much to the disappointment of the police who need answers. James Murray is the father, Raphaël Coleman his crippled brother(a car accident which killed their parents, he barely survived), Ty Glaser Phillips' school friend, Owen Teale the police officer(Sgt Perkins who suspects Phillips knows more than she is letting on), and Jack Ellis the psychiatrist( attempting to jar Phillips' memory as to what happened that day in surgery)round out the cast. To be honest, I'm not a Bijou Phillips fan and she once again did little to change my opinion of her. Except at the beginning, before entering the hospital for her son's birth, Phillips remains vacuous and aloof. I do understand that her character is tired and mentally deteriorating due to her baby's ferocious appetite for blood and human flesh(killing people and the difficulties of breastfeeding, not to mention, the constant crying for more cannibalistic nourishment don't help matters), but I had a damn hard time sympathetically aligning myself to her. I do think the point of the first film, the desperate attempts by a mother to protect her beloved child no matter what damage it causes or people it harms, is present in the remake, but a lot of the original's personality is missing from the newer modern take. I enjoyed Larry Cohen's "panic stricken public" and how the killer infant was considered a terror to the city, while this remake localizes the monster baby's antics to Phillips and Murray's New Mexico home. Those who come to talk sense into Phillips usually wind up lunch for the baby who even eats rats and cats. While acknowledging her baby's activities in horror when she comes across the grisly remains of what it has done to people it feeds from, she nevertheless continues to protect it, consequences be damned. We know that eventually protecting the baby will become impossible and she will have to take drastic measures to keep it from killing her husband or his brother. I didn't find IT'S ALIVE particularly satisfying, especially the underwhelming CGI of the baby(it is hardly ever on screen and when it is, the effects are quite noticeable)and the gory attacks are often hard to decipher due to the director's insistence on not showing the murders in elaborate detail. I'd just say stick with the original unless you are just a monster baby movie completist. How the baby can lock its father in the basement, hop around like a squirrel, and create such bloody crime scenes defies common sense. The film's explanation for the abnormalities of the baby derived from pills off the internet which are supposed to cause a miscarriage!

In this tedious and lifeless remake of Larry Cohen's 1974 campy horror classic pregnant Lenore delivers the baby.During the birth all the doctors and nurses in the operating room are viciously killed by the baby.It seems that her child is thirsty for human and animal blood.This "It's Alive" remake is downright silly and absurd.The film fails to generate even the smallest amount of tension.The killings are mediocre and the CGI effects are cheesy and unconvincing.However I enjoyed the performance of Bijou Philips,because her character has just enough depth to convey at least some of the conflicting emotions between a protective mother and someone frightened for their life.4 out of 10.Watch "Grace" or "Baby Blues" instead.

Ultrasound won't detect any acting talent in this abysmal re-telling of a film that wasn't very good to begin with. Larry Cohen's original 1974 schlock-fest had gallons of artificial blood, a campy story and one very bad looking baby puppet. This modernized version offers Bulgaria as an unconvincing stand-in for New Mexico, gallons of artificial blood and cheesy looking CGI effects. And does it have to take itself so serious? Strictly for those who consider enduring eighty-three minutes of labor pains any fun. Larry Cohen's movie spawned two sequels (1978, 1987). Whatever is in the works for this afterbirth - let's hope for abortion.