Too many fans seem to be blown away
That was an excellent one.
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
View MoreI am a big fan of Larry Cohen movies. So absurdly and poorly written and executed that they are hilarious. This one contains some really funny scenes. Trivia- in the shoe store Mr. Moriarty says "plunk your magic twanger froggy." This stuck in my head a very bizarre moment (actually I re-winded and puzzled over it several times) and I later found out that it is a quote from "the frogger song" released on a "pacman fever" album in the 1980s. Both before and after I found out what the reference was to I wondered what drugs the writers were on. I bought the DVD. You don't have to see the other It's Alive movies to enjoy this one. You just have to like off the wall B-movies.
View MoreDirector/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.
View More~Spoiler~ "It's one of them!" A pretty fine opening scene is the best part of this movie. After that, it goes downhill pretty quick. The killer babies are back, and this time they are sent to an abandoned island so they can no longer be a threat to humanity, and vice versa. It sounds like a great idea, but too much of the movie does not take place on said island. I envisioned an isolated island movie where some activists or other parties go searching for the babies, get stranded on the island, and mayhem ensues. Sadly, that is not the case. The babies aren't looking as good as they used to either. The first film succeeds by keeping the baby in the shadows, never quite revealing it. This film fails to generate any suspense because the creatures don't hold up so well fully exposed at great length. Larry Cohen even admitted this. The cast includes Cohen's go-to-guy, Michael Moriarty, and the always hammy Karen Black. So the acting is about what you expect. Moriarty has playing odd characters down to a science. They are still using the Bernard Herrmann score so that's one good thing they've got going for them.
View MoreI can't possibly figure out why the movie is rated so low here on IMDb... It's a very entertaining movie and an excellent closure to Larry Cohen's wild 'monstrous infants' trilogy. It already starts out terrific with a brilliant casting job: Michael Moriarty ("The Stuff") and Karen Black ("Burnt Offerings") together as parents?? No wonder that results in murderous offspring! This quirky B-movie implements a great tempo right from the beginning, with the cliché delivery of a killer-baby in a cab, and becomes even better when the entire freakshow is replaced to a courtroom. In this particularly fantastic opening, Stephen Jarvis (Moriarty), father of a mutant-baby, defends the rights of these ugly creatures and wants to prevent that more unfortunate babies are destroyed immediately after birth. After a powerfully scripted emotional speech, he wins the case and the babies are quarantined on a secret island location, down South of Florida. Five years later, Stephen Jarvis is forced against his will to join a scientific expedition towards to island to see how the babies have developed. The expedition crew will soon find out that the former babies still have ferocious tendencies but Jarvis equally discovers that they gained telekinetic powers and that they formed a community on their own...Larry Cohen's still growing sense of black, offbeat humor is terrifically illustrated through some of the deranged plot-twists and especially through Moriarty's eccentric character. His sarcastic one-liners about his unsuccessful acting career or his unwanted popularity as the "father of the monster" makes this "Island of the Alive" one of Cohen's wittiest achievements to date. Also, this final chapter obviously disposed of a much larger budget as the previous installments which allows Cohen's to zoom in more on the malevolent babies and the mess they make when slaughtering. Keep your eyes open for all the ingenious little ideas Cohen adds during the trip to, and return from the island! There are too many to list, such as a side-trip to Fidel Castro's Cuba, a demented singing choir (which looks like it's spoofing "Jaws") or Jarvis' self-indulgent harassing-efforts towards a female scientist. Naturally, this movie has its flaws I can't overlook.. Maybe the finished product is a little long and some sequences should have stayed in the cutting room. Like for example a totally unrelated hunting-trip of greedy thrill-seekers to the island early in the film or a study of Karen Black's troubled love-life after giving birth to a monster. The climax is great, rewarding and makes Cohen's "It's Alive" circle complete. If you appreciate imaginative plotting and absurd horror tales, I recommend the entire It's Alive-cycle as well as every other production Larry Cohen was ever involved in.
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