jaag51 Ask yourself did Tommy Kirk need the money ? Watch for the "kept" female prisoner continually going into the cage to feed the prisoners,while they ask her if she'll open the cage for them. Meanwhile she exits the cage via a door to the house as they watch her leave each time. Bonkers !! She never leaves through the cage door they want her to open. Was this written for and by complete idiots or as a comedy ?

brando647 Despite its promising title, "IT'S ALIVE!" is dead on arrival. This late sixties TV creature feature opens with five full minutes of driving footage. Inside the car, outside of the car, just a bunch of driving. It tries to salvage the viewers' interest with an ominous voice-over narration that rambles about rain and sunshine. In the middle of this meaningless driving montage, we're treated to the opening credits where I discovered the one interesting thing about this movie. There's a paleontology credit, and it's attributed to Skip Frazee. A quick glimpse at Mr. Frazee's background and we see he was a sound engineer in the production world with no other paleontological credits before or after "IT'S ALIVE!". This makes sense because the movie's paleontology is limited to the revelation that the creature is a dinosaur and it should've gone extinct 65 million years ago. Good job. When the movie finally kicks into gear, we're introduced to the world's most irritating married couple, Norman (Corveth Ousterhouse) and Leilla (Shirley Boone) Sterns. The two are travelling across the country by car because Leilla loves to see America up close, and Norman never refrains from an opportunity to tell her how much he hates it. With night closing in and the gas tank nearly empty, Norman and Leilla are forced to pull into isolated reptile house tourist attraction in the middle of the woods. Here we're introduced to Greely (Bill Thurman) and his downtrodden housekeeper Bella (Annabelle Weenick), who harbor a deadly secret.It doesn't take long for things to get weird around the Greely home. He acts shady from the moment he meets the miserable couple and, despite their bad feelings about their situation, they agree to a tour of Greely's "serpetorium". Greely runs a crappy little zoo that might've charmed mid-twentieth century America but has fallen out of favor since a new highway derailed his business. He's proud of his little operation, explaining that he caught all of the animals himself (where'd he catch a monkey in middle America?). His pride and joy rests deep underground in a cavern and he invites the couple down to view it, but surprise! It's a trap. Norman and Leilla find themselves imprisoned in the cavern with helpful paleontologist Wayne (Tommy Kirk), who had been taken captive when he stopped by Greely's to check in on the Sterns' auto troubles. Wayne plots their escape while Norman continues to prattle about how stupid he believes his wife to be, and the trio explore deeper into the cavern where they encounter Greely's favorite pet: a "dinosaur" monster. This monster costume is priceless. Wayne tries to identify the dinosaur species but it was nothing I'm familiar with and I'm sure it was bogus. The creature is your typical rubber suit, but it's got bulbous ping-pong ball eyes and rubber teeth that wobble and bounce in all directions. It shambles toward its victims and, since its face can't articulate, it kills them off screen and we're spared the action.When that monster appeared, my views on this movie pulled a total about-face. I was willing to forgive the driving montage and unlikeable characters if this monster was going to go on a murder spree. But it never does. It takes its victim and then disappears back into its mud puddle until the final moments of the film. The remaining forty minutes are filler and garbage with yet another driving montage (not as long as the first) and then more than twenty minutes of flashing back to when Bella was taken captive. We spend a sizeable chunk of this crappy movie learning how Bella was a teacher who had the bad fortune to stop at Greely's and became his tormented house slave. None of it has anything to do with the dinosaur monster. Excuse me, "IT'S ALIVE" and director Larry Buchanan, but we came for the dinosaur monster. Give us the dinosaur monster and stop wasting our time. Maybe instead of unnecessary backstory, we could've used that time to show an escape attempt or something to up the tension. There are at least two occasions when Wayne, Leilla, and Norman could've jumped Bella (if she was uncooperative) and escaped through the access hatch she uses in the house's cellar. No, their plans are way more stupid. "IT'S ALIVE!" is seventy-five minutes of mindless filler with maybe (if I'm being generous) five minutes of worthwhile content. The dinosaur is severely underused, the characters are morons, and we didn't get nearly enough of Greely's fantastic maniacal laughter. That laugh and the dinosaur costume are the only reasons anyone should try and watch this movie, and there's barely enough of either in there to justify it.

mrquinella The film is really, really bad. It is also laugh-out-loud funny! Like The Creeping Terror (which is hands-down, the worst monster flick of all time), this movie is so bad that it is good. The monster is fresh off the sale rack at Wal-Mart after Halloween. The sort of villainess enters and leaves the dungeon/prison through a standard door which, for some reason, the prisoners choose not to use to make their escape. And Tommy Kirk is shot in the abdomen midway through the movie, yet manages to fight off his 300-pound antagonist in the end. The flashbacks take up half the film. The gaffes are blatant...no decent film buff would even take any pride at spotting them. It is certainly among the top 5 of the worst movies of all time, and for that reason, it should be seen so it may be believed.

joebstewart As others have said this movie is so bad that parts of it are good.I would say this is the worst movie I have ever seen. But it is good fun.I can see that it would play well on late night TV or in a drive inback in 1969. I liked the location shots and the crazy Mr. Greely. Andthe pretty blond. The monster was too lame for words. Some of the worst acting I have ever seen in a movie. Perod.But all in all a very campy movie. Pure trash. Reminded me of "The Thing" in Arizona. And "What is it?" South of the Border. A good play on tourist traps. A bit of a Psycho ripoff.