inanytime If you like the films of Ed Wood (Plan 9 from Outer Space) and Larry Blamire (The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra), you're going to love this one. I haven't seen any other films of this series and had no expectations when I started to watch it, but I thoroughly enjoyed film for its humour and the depiction of the story. This film has got on your face dead pan humour, with good acting by the entire cast, especially Michael Moriarty who is perfect in his portrayal of Jarvis. Good locations and camera work even though it's supposed to be low budget. It's got some of the best one liners you'll ever come across in a horror movie.

Paul Andrews It's Alive III: Island of the Alive starts in court as state prosecutor argues that the mutant babies that are being born across the US should be killed at birth & are not human, mutant baby father Stephen Jarvis (Michhael Moriarty) manages to convince the court that the babies have feelings & should be allowed to live. Judge Milton Watson (Macdonald Carey) rules in favour of Jarvis & the babies right to live but orders them all to be placed on an isolated island away from humanity so they cannot hurt anyone & that the location be kept secret. Five years later & Jarvis is contacted by cop Lt. Perkins (James Dixon) who has agreed to go to the island with a team of Government funded scientists to study the babies & how they have adapted, as a father of one of the mutant babies they want Jarvis to accompany them which he also agrees to. Once at the island the team discover that the babies have grown up remarkably quickly, have telepathic powers & have started breeding amongst themselves...Executive produced, written & directed by Larry Cohen this was the third entry in his It's Alive trilogy, the first It's Alive (1974) is generally considered to be a strong film while it's sequel It Lives Again (1978) expanded upon the original's themes without being quite as good which leaves It's Alive III: Island of the Alive as probably the weakest of the three films in my opinion & I have now seen all three in the space of three days. The script here seems rushed, the film jumps from one random subplot to another, from the court case to Jarvis being rejected by a woman because he's the mutant babies father to a hunting expedition on the island to the scientific research team to a bizarre scene in Cuba to an ending where the mutant baby wants to find it's mother the film as a whole never quite gels together with the various strands of the plot dangling around without nothing to tie them together. It's Alive III: Island of the Alive just seems like a lazy film, it just seems like Cohen had various ideas but didn't quite know how to knit them together so he would just put one idea into the script, get bored with it & have another idea & go with that one instead forgetting about the previous one. At an hour & a half it does drag at times & the biting social commentary & neat metaphors from the previous It's Alive films are notably absent here in what is a much more routine & predictable script.Made back to back with A Return to Salem's Lot (1987) with many of the same cast & crew that might also explained the rushed nature of the film, even the amusing visuals of the first two films are missing here in what is a fairly bland looking film throughout. The gore is very restrained despite being the only one rated 'R', there's some profanity, one mild sex scene, some slashed faces, some blood splatter & the only real stand out gore moment is a guy seen staggering around with his arm ripped off. Once again the babies are barely seen, this time around there's stop-motion animation & we see them grown up but like when they are babies it's just quick flashes of what they look like.The island scenes were apparently filmed in Hawaii but the editing is still choppy & it does look a little cheap at times. The acting varies, Michael Moriarty is always watchable but he puts in a crazy performance here, from mumbling to himself to singing songs while on the open sea to various sarcastic one-liners to sexual harassment of female scientists.It's Alive III: Island of the Alive is the weakest of the three It's Alive films, that's all there is to it really. Watchable in an oddball sort of way but nothing special overall.

udar55 Larry Cohen returns after nearly a decade to finish off his mutant baby trilogy with mixed results. Stephen Jarvis (Michael Moriarty) battles in court for the rights of the mutant baby he had with his wife Ellen (Karen Black). The sympathetic judge orders all of the babies to be placed on an island. 5 years later, a scientific team gets together to visit the island and check the progress. Naturally, Jarvis is brought along because of his ability to communicate with the mutants.Cohen certainly has tons of ideas with this one. This is a court room drama, KING KONG adventure, and urban chase thriller all in one. Heck, he even throws in an out of nowhere tangent where Jarvis ends up in Cuba. I would say maybe 50% of the ideas work, with the island stuff (shot in beautiful Hawaii) being the highlight. Cohen is also betrayed by the FX for the grown mutants, which look like the babies on steroids. Moriarty also gives quite a performance as the sarcastic Jarvis. There is a great cast alongside Moriarty and Black including Gerrit Graham, Laurene Landon, and director Neal Israel. Also, Cohen regular James Dixon returns in his biggest role to date as Lt. Perkins, the only character to appear in all three films (outside of the killer kids).

dav07dan02 Director/Script: Larry Cohen, Cast: Michael Moriarty, Karen Black, James Dixon This is, of course, the last film in the 'Its Alive' trilogy by Larry Cohen. It also features James Dixon, the only person to appear in all three films. In the original film, only one couple was known to have produced such a baby. By this third film,they have multiplied and several couples are producing these mutant demon babies. This film starts out in court with the father of one of the babies. He is pleading with some federal judge to spare these babies from destruction. The babies are ordered by the judge to be sent off to a remote island off the coast of Flordia where they will remain in exile. Nobody is to go to the island. Five years later the judge dies so the no visitors to the island policy changes. A team of scientists along with the father go to the island to 'see how the babies are doing' The babies are now five years old, fully grown and meaner than ever! Before long, the father is the only one left alive. The 'babies' are brought back to the mainland with disastrous results! This film is a good ending to the series. Certainly not on par with the first but a good enough sequel with that same 'B' movie campiness of the two previous films. This probably had the highest production cost of the three films. Interestingely enough, the first two films where PG rated whereas this one received an R rating due to F words that where thrown in for good measure. Cinematography was done by Dan Pearl of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame.