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April 01, 2008

It's Alive!

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

By Greg

This post is a part of the 2nd Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

Larry Buchanan's abysmal It's Alive! should only be watched by professionals. I don't mean professional critics. It's Alive! doesn't deserve a review any longer than the title of this article, and certainly not the analysis I'm about to give it. I mean to say that this totally unmitigated piece of shit should not be consumed by those untrained in the viewing of terrible movies. Even with my significant experience in watching the unwatchable, it took me three sittings to finish this unredeemable piece of trash.

It's Alive opens on the cross country car trip of a mismatched couple (who's names I don't want to remember) from New York (or someplace) who's petty and selfish relationship is disintegrating with every passing mile. The tension and pain of their emotional battle is totally lost on the viewer. I was, however, very empathetic to their mutual loathing for each other. These are the first characters you want to see killed.

The second is the paleontologist played by former Disney poster boy Tommy Kirk. But Kirk was always so lovable, you say? Why would I want him dead? First of all, his occupation. The thing which is “alive” turns out to be a stupid looking dinosaur (which through some miracle of special effects looks only man high, though it is actually 50 ft tall). This stupid movie seems to think that my “suspension of disbelieve” could somehow be assisted by a few throw-away lines about “suspended animation” by a really convenient expert. The second is Kirk himself. It's really painful to watch him actually deliver his lines with basic competence. At times he even manages to elicit sympathy. Unfortunately his performance is simultaneously tainted by the rest of the film and highlights the abominable acting of every other performer.

Basically, these three awful characters end up the captives of a sadistic hillbilly who happens to have a big, stupid looking monster in a cave. Again, they deserve it. When the couple runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere they pull off the main road to see if they can bum some fuel. The contemptible asshole believes the best way to go about this is to honk angrily in front of a stranger's house until someone emerges and then proceed to demand some gas and the use of a telephone. The stranger then nabs them, and tries to feed them to his “friend.” When Kirk tries to help he ends up in the cave with them. Now, in the face of crisis, the New York pig rises to the occasion and tries to kill the helpful and charming Kirk out of jealousy. This act, with the worst kind of ham-handed attempt at poetic justice, leads to his death by the silly, unterrifying, ping-pong ball eyed monster/circus clown sidekick.

At this point, obviously under a lot of strain from recent events and deeply regretting the things she said to her boyfriend just before his gruesome death, the New York woman starts trying to pick up Tommy Kirk. Boyish good looks aside, this terrible bitch deserves to die. And in the way I've chosen to remember the end of the film she does, though you may be disappointed it you try this one out for yourself.

I almost forgot about the half-hour flashback story of how a stupid and useless character I didn't care about came to be in the movie. The most fascinating aspect to this half of the film is is the technique used to show that it's a flashback. For this sequence Buchanan emulated earlier cinematic forms to show that it was set in an earlier time. While your average pedestrian, hack director would have settled for some black and white, or maybe even grainy super8 footage, Buchanan choose to regress all the way back to the SILENT FILM era. Though the whole film was shot silently and dumbed later, this part of the film was evidently overlooked in post production. Only some occasional narration explains that the flapping lips and pantomimes you are seeing is someone entering a house and unpacking their bags. Or latter when she's sitting, followed by sleeping.

I really racked my brain trying to come up with some even pretend symbolism to talk about, but there just isn't anything their. To delve deep enough into this film to find any kind of meaning would require the stripping of a person's sanity. Only after shedding everything which makes up my moral universe would I be capable of convincing myself there is any sort of pattern of design to this film. I'm sorry, I just not willing to do that for this April Fool's Day gag.

It's Alive will at best induce temporary narcolepsy, but is also likely to cause vomiting and possibly suicide. This film, and the White Elephant itself, begs the questions of why one should bother reviewing anything this far below the bar. But we have to ask these questions as a society. We have to ask how a “schlockmeister” like Buchanan could even get together the ten or twelve bucks needed to make this evil film in 1969. People were stating to make amazing films on tiny budgets at that point. And how could this thing make money (it did). Why would people go to see a role of used toilet paper run through a projector? Why would the youth market, traditional consumers of this type of fair for twenty years, not abandon shit like this altogether for alternatives like Easy Rider? Was it really imperative that they see a movie every week? If the New Hollywood Renaissance made cheap, interesting, entertaining, youth oriented, art films possible, why did it never succeed in totally replacing and silencing this kind of unwatchable garbage? What does this say about film? What does it say about the audience? Our society?

For now I will answer only in the context of It's Alive! and say that this film exemplifies the worst outcomes of man's endeavors, and the grimmest prognosis of man's potential.

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