It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)


In the late 1980s, with home video becoming ever more popular, Larry Cohen was asked to do a movie to go straight to VHS.  He instead contracted to do two of them, one being Return to Salem's Lot and the other being a third and final chapter in his saga about killer babies, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive.  This time around he decided to explore what happens when the babies grow up as well as the connection they may have with their parents.

Stephen Jarvis (Michael Moriarty) is one of the many parents of the mutant babies.  The aim has been to kill them when they are born but a court case finds Jarvis proving that there can be a bond with the creatures despite the fact they are still dangerous.  Instead of ordering their extermination, Judge Watson (Macdonald Carey) orders that the surviving infants be gathered and placed on a deserted island where they can do no harm.

For the most part the plan works despite a visit from Cabot (William Watson) and his hunting buddies.  It turns out Cabot is the head of a pharmaceutical company whose drugs were responsible for the mutations, although he has managed to keep it quiet.  He attempts to kill the babies, but fails.  Five years later Dr. Swensen (Art Lund) leads another expedition to the island, with Jarvis in tow as well as Lt. Perkins (James Dixon), the detective involved in the original case, and doctors Morrell (Ann Dane) and Brewster (Neal Israel).  That also goes awry, but Jarvis survives due to his son, who has since become a father, protecting him.  It turns out he wants to go visit his mother, Jarvis's ex-wife Ellen (Karen Black).

The narrative on this one does become a bit convoluted, but at least it has something It Lives Again lacks, and that is killer babies attacking people.  This is the sequel the original It's Alive should have had.  Ironically, for something that was intended to go straight to video, this seems to have a bigger budget than its predecessor.  They may look old fashioned but, for me, the stop-motion babies are great, and the makeup on the grown-up versions is impressive as well.

Island of the Alive intentionally has much more humor, something Moriarty often brought to the Larry Cohen movies he was in.  It also focuses less on the horror elements in the beginning and on the impact that the whole affair had on families such as the Jarvises, who end up thrust into the limelight and become social pariahs because of it.  The movie does meander and at some points feels like a number of ideas were used just for Cohen's amusement, but this is much more of what one would want from this type of film.

It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
Time: 95 minutes
Starring: Michael Moriarty, Karen Black, James Dixon
Director: Larry Cohen

 

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