It Lives Again (1978): B+

With It Lives Again, Larry Cohen shifts his horror series’ focus from the realm of the personal to that of the communal, positing a situation in which the childbirth aberration suffered by It’s Alive’s Davis family has mutated into a bourgeoning epidemic. A few years after his own infant ordeal, notorious monster daddy Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) crashes the baby shower of Eugene (Frederic Forrest) and Jody Scott (Kathleen Lloyd) in order to notify them that they’re destined to spawn a lil’ “It.” After rescuing them from a hospital planning (with the help of the police) to kill the child upon its entry into the world, Frank shuttles them off to a secret compound where Dr. Perry (Bone’s Andrew Duggan) is committed to protecting their, as well as two other similar, creatures from the militant factions which seek their destruction. Decidedly slower and less menacing than the original, Cohen’s film also boasts a more supple social critique that allows for myriad interpretations – abortion, homosexuality, and prenatal genetic conditions are merely three of the film’s many potential allegorical readings. And though Bernard Hermann’s musical presence is sorely missed and Rick Baker’s effects work isn’t up to his usual standards – the quick glimpses of the rubbery “babies” remain the trilogy’s weakest element – It Lives Again still proves poised in its balancing of humor, terror and tragedy.