Movie Info
Movie Name: It’s Alive 3: Island of the Alive
Studio: Larco Productions
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): May 1987
MPAA Rating: R
Bad news…you’ve booked your vacation on the ISLAND OF THE ALIVE!!!!
The births of mutated babies continue, and Stephen Jarvis (Michael Moriarty) has decided to fight the policy to kill the children without the help of his wife Ellen (Karen Black). Winning a court case to keep his baby alive, Jarvis learns that the children will be send off to an isolated island in the Caribbean…but a research mission five years later unleashes the horror again!
Written and directed by Larry Cohen, It’s Alive 3: Island of the Alive is a B-Movie horror film. Following It Lives Again in 1978, it was mostly panned and received a small release.
It’s Alive was one of those movies I wanted to see as a kid with It Lives Again as a close second. For some reason, I had little interest in It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive. It could have been the goofy poster or the bad special effects that even made the box. It’s Alive III might carry on the story, but it seems to lack the fun.
I love to freshen up in a jungle waterfall with my mutant baby friends
The story for It’s Alive III is even more ridiculous than the previous entries. I suppose it is plausible that instead of killing babies that they would be isolated somewhere, but the stupid part is how everyone seems to think they will reach the killer babies when others failed. The scientists plan a trip to the island…and the scientists are killed. It has some potentially interesting moments involving Cuba, but for the most part the movie plods along unsure if it wants to go full comedy or try to keep being a semi-horror film.
Michael Moriarty is Cohen’s go-to guy, and he is in general enjoyable. He makes the most of the movie and decides to boost the humor. He overacts (intentionally) and eats up most of his scenes (since he’s generally acting alone with unseen mutant babies). Karen Black is underused as his wife and James Dixon returns as the police officer constantly drawn into the mutant baby drama.
I’m not sure what movie Michael Moriarty and Karen Black are starring in…but I’m not sure that they know that it is It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive…
The movie’s special effects are possibly worse than the previous entries (if that is possible). Most of It’s Alive and It Lives Again took place at night so the mutant baby is in the shadows. Here, you have a lush tropical island so the few glimpses you get of the adult mutant babies are awful. I do like the claymation baby at the beginning of the film, but the movie must have blown its budget on that. With almost ten years since the previous entry, I kind of expected more in the visuals which were an extreme letdown (especially since it received an R-Rating).
It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive has a catchy title that plays up the humor of the series, but the movie itself is kind of stuck in-between. It is too goofy to be much of a horror but not funny or fun enough to be a comedy or a dark comedy. The mutant It’s Alive baby did return eventually in a remake in It’s Alive in 2009.
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