In a direct sequel to Cohen's 1974's cult favourite "It's Alive!", Forrest and Lloyd take over as a couple playing host parents to a newborn 'sacrilige' being observed along with two fellow mutant tots by a mad-dish ("perhaps theirs is the race that will be able to adapt to the future") scientist.
The script's impartial stance on the blindness of the 'authorities' against the plain stupidity of nature-tampering science, along with the excellent and affecting portrayal of parental suspended grief by the two leads, are sadly the film's only virtues.
On the back of the cult critical plaudits poured over his "God Told Me To" the previous year Cohen seems to have transformed into the Tarantino of his day by the time of this production, resulting in an overly-discerning, archly facetious parody of his original. Following a coherent and workable first 20 minutes the babies escape, characterisation fades into evanescent memory, and suspenselessly-edited sequences telegraphed as 'shock' but ending up as anything but become the order of the day.
Cohen's career subsequent to this was a pretty unambiguously hit ("Q") and miss ("Wicked Stepmother", "Return to Salem's Lot") affair. Visually it's all pretty ugly, and just like with the aforementioned Mr T it's hard to discern (ie care) whether or not the amateur slapdashness is in fact sick slickness. Hardly a gracious return to American movies for Eddie 'Lemmy Caution' Constantine, either.
The script's impartial stance on the blindness of the 'authorities' against the plain stupidity of nature-tampering science, along with the excellent and affecting portrayal of parental suspended grief by the two leads, are sadly the film's only virtues.
On the back of the cult critical plaudits poured over his "God Told Me To" the previous year Cohen seems to have transformed into the Tarantino of his day by the time of this production, resulting in an overly-discerning, archly facetious parody of his original. Following a coherent and workable first 20 minutes the babies escape, characterisation fades into evanescent memory, and suspenselessly-edited sequences telegraphed as 'shock' but ending up as anything but become the order of the day.
Cohen's career subsequent to this was a pretty unambiguously hit ("Q") and miss ("Wicked Stepmother", "Return to Salem's Lot") affair. Visually it's all pretty ugly, and just like with the aforementioned Mr T it's hard to discern (ie care) whether or not the amateur slapdashness is in fact sick slickness. Hardly a gracious return to American movies for Eddie 'Lemmy Caution' Constantine, either.