It Lives Again / It's Alive 3 - Island of the Alive

Rating:
Summary: Skip It Lives Again, and go straight for Island of the Alive
Review: It's ALive 3: Island of the Alive is down right hilarious. Nothing is better than watching mutant babies grow up and eat people. I mean seriously. My personal favorite scene was the court room scene with the "baby" in the cage. Good laughs.
In this flick, Michael Moriarity portrays a father of a mutant "baby." The government decides to put the lil' suckers (theres five or so now) on an uncharted island. Five years later, they decide they need to get "fluid samples" off the creatures for scientific research. Michael Moriarity goes along for the ride. Well the "babies" have grown into five year old "adults." And one of them has had a baby of their own. Yes indeed, Moriarity is a Pappy. All is well until they all die. Except Moriarity. The monsters want to get back to civilization and Moriarity gets stuck with the job of taking them there. Somewhere along the journey, they chuck him out into the ocean, Cuba picks him up, he gets back to the states, bla bla bla. All in all, this is a funny movie that deserves a four star rating on a B-movie scale. Watching this movie alone is like getting beat to death by golf clubs, but watching it with a bunch of B-movie lovers is a riot.

If you liked "Island of the Alive" I recomend: the awesomely bad movie "Creature," it's sci-fi on drugs and totally funny.
What I learned from Island of the Alive: Cuban officers are nice AND funny.

Rating:
Summary: IA3 is great...right up till the baby suits
Review: Larry Cohen is a fabulous writer whose stories are unique and thrilling, not to mention at times hilarious. I'm real pleased that his recent films (Phone Booth and its ironic mirror image Cellular) has brought him back into the public eye.

It's Alive 3 is the culmination of the trilogy, which in its way mirrors the evolution of the Romero "Dead" movies. As the films progress, the mutant births are more and more prevalent, and we're seeing more of how the general public reacts to them.

The film starts strong with a woman giving birth in a cab and a cop helping in the delivery. As he realizes the baby is "one of them", he pulls out his revolver and starts shooting between the woman's legs.

There's a great sequence with Cohen regular Michael Moriarity in court, pleading for custody of his mutant son. Gerritt Graham (remember him) is great as the opposing attorney who suggests that if Moriarity loves his son so much, he should take it out of the steel cage he is currently imprisoned...and hold it.

Unfortunately, that's where the film just falls apart. We flash to some time later where we learn that the babies grow at an accelerated (or "speeded-up") rate on an uncharted island they have been imprisoned on. Great idea...if it wasn't for the fact that the grown up babies look like giant six-foot tall babies, giant fang-faced heads and everything. There's more than a passing resemblance to one of Rick Baker's first jobs, Octaman. Tragic and laughable.

Well worth the time till about halfway in, and a good end to a strong trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: Koochie-koochie-Coooooaaaaiiiieeeehhgggg!!
Review: They're cute! They're cuddly! They'll rip yer head off! In IT'S ALIVE, the Davis baby ran (crawled) amok, leaving bodies strewn in it's frenzied wake! Larry Cohen's saga of babies gone bad continues with this double dose of pernicious pablum! IT LIVES AGAIN has Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) crashing a baby shower to deliver the bad news that the expectant parents (Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd) are about to hear the pitter-patter of little murderous-mutant feet! If that's not horrid enough, the government is watching and waiting for it's chance to swoop in and make things even worse! Mr. Mallory (John "horses-head-in-the-bed" Marley), leads a team of operatives bent on mutant infanticide. Frank must get the young couple into hiding at a secret facility before the inevitible bloodbath. Check out the delivery-room on wheels! Slower than the original, but good enough for repeat viewings. ISLAND OF THE ALIVE opens with the infamous taxi-cab delivery scene. Then, we shift to a father named Stephen Jarvis (Michael "Q-The Winged Serpent" Moriarty) fighting in court for the life of his caged son. The judge decides to spare the creature, and an island is found where it and others of it's kind can live in peace. Well, of course, invaders arrive to hunt down and kill the babies, only to become so much baby food themselves! Finally, another team is sent to "study" the lil' devils, who have all grown up into big ol' cannibals! Mmmm! It turns out that the "kids" have a plan of their own! Karen Black (Trilogy Of Terror, Burnt Offerings) stars as Jarvis' ex-wife, Ellen; who just wants to forget the whole "killer baby" thing. I love this one! Much gorier than the first two. This is a great double feature! Grab the first one too and complete the trifecta...

Rating:
Summary: Born to be bad? Or just misunderstood?
Review: Writer, producer and director Larry Cohen completes his cannibal mutant baby trilogy with the last two films, It's Lives Again (1978) aka It's Alive II and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987), both available here on one DVD.

It Lives Again stars Fredric Forrest (Apocalypse Now) and Kathleen Lloyd (The Car) as Eugene and Jody Scott, a young couple expecting their first baby. What they don't know is the gooberment has been keeping tabs on them, as test results, provided by their doctor, indicate their pregnancy may result in the same sort of freakish horror experienced by the Davis couple of the first film, an experience shared by a growing number of couples. The official reaction is to put the babies down at birth, but an underground movement has developed, one intended to save these babies, as to study and learn from them. Are they truly the next step in human evolution, as some think, or are they the result of some strange, unforeseen side effect to various over the counter drugs used by millions of people everyday? Returning from the first film is John P. Ryan as Frank Davis, father of the first freaky infant, and deeply involved with the underground movement to save the babies, Andrew Duggan as Dr. Perry (I'm unsure if he's actually reviving his role from the first film as in that one his character was credited just as `The Professor'), and James Dixon (the only actor to appear in all three films) as Detective Perkins. Also appearing is John Mallory (The Godfather) as Mr. Mallory, a man working with the gooberment as he has a personal interest in seeing these nasty creatures put down.

In It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, the story continues, this time on a much larger scale, as now the case of the freaky babies goes to court, as the gooberment tries to justify its' policy of killing these creatures at birth, while Stephen Jarvis (Hey, it's Michael Moriarty from TV's Law & Order...and he's got a full head of hair, to boot...actually Moriarty seemed a Larry Cohen favorite who, along with Dixon, appeared in Cohen's other films like Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff), father to one of the creepy crawlers tries to save his young son's life. His impassioned plea ultimately results in a stay of execution for his son and others, but on the condition that the abhorrent children are exiled to a secluded, uninhabited island where they shall live out the rest of their natural lives, a threat to no one, that is until a small group, including Jarvis, decide to travel to the island, finding that, due to an accelerated growth rate, the babies are now adults...reproductive adults. Also appearing in the film is B movie fan favorite Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror...remember that wacky Zuni doll? I sure do...nothing sez loving like a Zuni in the oven).

One thing I noticed about both these films is that Cohen, not seeming content to churn out more of the same, really put an effort into expanding the original story, to which I think he did to some degree of success, although neither of the following films was able to, in my opinion, really revive the shock value of the first. In It Lives Again, Cohen does manage to import some of the wonderful qualities of the first film, helped greatly by the inclusion of a number of returning characters. Also, I thought Forrest and Lloyd did very well in their parts showing the stresses and strain having a freakishly hideous mutant cannibal baby can have on a marriage. I really enjoyed the notion of two factions, one being the gooberment intent on putting these creatures down on sight, and the other, and underground movement designed to save, protect, and learn from these creatures (to their ultimate folly). The film got a little bogged down near the end, but still came through as a suitable, and enjoyable, successor to the first. In It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, I thought the film started out strong, but then deviated in some very strange directions, figuratively and literally...at one point, Jarvis is thrown overboard after his mutant son commandeers the ship which Jarvis and his group travel to the Island with, and Jarvis ends up in Cuba...it was certainly weird, but kinda funny...actually, I perceived the character of Jarvis to take on a sort of Odysseus (of Homer's The Iliad) quality as his journey was long and fraught with curious peril. The movie, made some 13 years after the first, has the best production values of the three, but seemingly the least amount of heart, which was sad, but not entirely unexpected, as often the more sequels there are to a film, the more diluted and strained the original concept becomes (look at the Police Academy films for a prime example of this). Keep in mind, as with the first, the horror elements in these two films are less of the visceral kind, despite the advertising, (there's minimal blood in all three, but what there is, is used effectively). We rarely get to see the creatures in any of the films (except maybe the third, as the `adults' run around a bit, looking kinda goofy in their rubber suits). Also, the special effects are of the minimal kind (shoddy...the third film does feature some stop motion work, but it's not that great), which, I think is part of the reason we see so little of the creatures, but more so as to create a real sense of suspense and fear, always keeping them sort of in our peripheral vision.

Both films are presented in widescreen format, with It's Alive III sporting the better quality print. It Lives Again looks good, but there's white speckling present (probably due to age deterioration), and the audio is very soft in some spots. Both films feature their original theatrical trailers and a commentary track by Cohen.

Cookieman108