A massive leap for Larry Cohen as a director - it's so much more confident visually than some of his other movies. His handling is assured and confident. It's well written but that's less surprising. This is a simple idea extremely well executed.
I normally associated John P Ryan as the psycho warden in Runaway Train so it was weird to see him as a nice guy family man. His wife is about to have her second wife and Cohen brilliantly exploits one of the all time great fears - that your baby will be born deformed - and gives it a twist: that the baby becomes a killer. It's a primal, strong concept.
Ryan's performance anchors the film well. He's given good support by Sharon Farrell as the wife. Part of me was thinking maybe Cohen should have focused more on the mother - who after all carried the damn thing for nine months and is the mother. But I guess making Ryan the central figure means we can move around more. Farrell secretly hiding the son makes for good conflict with Ryan. Also Ryan's character goes on more of a journey... Farrell's love for the baby is strong and more unconditional, whereas Ryan gets to cover disgust, embarrassment, anger, etc before coming to love and regret. Ryan's final scene with his "son" is very powerful.
Bernard Herrmann did a superb score which helps create a wonderful atmosphere. I felt the lower budget helped - Ryan is walking around alone and isolated in many shots, but it adds to the feeling of desolation and loneliness. The budget does stretch for a decent amount of gun wielding policemen.
Cohen fans will enjoy the Cohen touches, like Ryan impersonating Walter Brennan, and discussing watching Frankenstein films and reading the novel when discussing his son. They'll also like it of course because it's one of his best movies.
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