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| Image: poster for It's Alive |
A diabolical low budget shocker that represents the ultimate assault on the nuclear family. A 'normal', middle-class couple prepare for the birth of their baby who, barely out of the womb, goes on a frenzied killing spree. The cause of their mutant child's aberrant behaviour goes unexplained, but Cohen offers up several possibilities, including environmental factors such as pollution, ozone depletion and radiation.
It's Alive encapsulated the growing unease of a generation that had internalised the anxieties of the Atomic Age and who more acutely began to sense the terror lurking in an increasingly toxic world. Hitchcock's regular collaborator, Bernard Herrmann, composed the film's noteworthy score (his last work before his death in 1976).
