It's Alive (1974) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - Sunday, April 10, 1977

Larry Cohen's iconic monster baby opus It's Alive had a brief theatrical run in 1974, but was pulled and shelved by an unimpressed, or just plain embarrassed, distributor. 

Three years and a regime change later, the new boss had a far more favorable opinion of It's Alive than the old boss. So, in 1977, the movie was pulled off the shelf and re-released, with a snazzy new campaign that scared the living daylights out of nine-year-old me.

I was fascinated and petrified by the sight of that clawed hand draped over the side of an ever so slowly twirling basset, the thumping heartbeat that began as soon as it came into view, and the monstrous cry heard just after the narrator intones, "You see, there's only one thing wrong with the Davis baby... it's alive."

While not a huge hit by today's standards, the film did rake in a tidy profit for the studio. So a sequel was requested. More on that later.

I didn't see It's Alive until well into the 1980s. While it was not quite the traumatizing creature feature I had imagined as a child, it was nonetheless an intriguing and fascinating little nightmare scenario.