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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Koochie-koochie-Coooooaaaaiiiieeeehhgggg!!, November 10, 2004
This review is from: It Lives Again / It's Alive 3 - Island of the Alive (DVD)
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...
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lotsa Fun, March 15, 2006
This review is from: It Lives Again / It's Alive 3 - Island of the Alive (DVD)
In my review of 'It's Alive' I noted that that film was surprisingly serious and low-key for a film about murderous mutant babies. The same cannot be said for these two movies. However, they're highly entertaining, so between the 3 of them we get a bit of everything. This is some very entertaining schlock horror right here. Can't imagine why it isn't more popular.
'It Lives Again' is the better of the two here, and probably the best of the series. This is a direct sequel, as the killer baby epidemic is spreading and the government has resorted to immediate execution. Frank Davis is back with a number of sympathetic doctors and scientists, and is working to save the children. This time there are 3 babies, and there is a whole lot more baby mayhem. Though they're still occasionally conspicously absent from the frame, you see a whole lot more of the kids this time around. Obviously, they are rarely at all convincing but I think they look neat and seeing the babies maul someone is always a treat. There's still quite a bit of downtime, but Frank is still entertaining to watch, so it doesn't hurt it all too much. He's getting pretty obsessive and nutty by now, but I still sympathize with him. This time around the whole thing seems a lot wackier. Now they've got whole legions of cops waiting for the babies, and watching them search the hillside and lengthily discuss baby-hunting strategy is just very amusing. The film is hurt by the fact that the ending is a bit to reiterative of the original. Seems a little lazy this way, but it doesn't matter too much.
Grade: B
'Island of the Alive' is easily the weakest of the series, but it's still entertaining and deserves some credit for trying something new. It starts Michael Moriarty as Jarvis, an actor who fathers a mutant child, and fights to have them saved. After a hilarious and awesome courtroom scene involving a stop-motion animated baby it is decided that the killer babies will be banished to some jungle island. The film focuses on a few years later where there is an expedition to see how the babies have grown. This points to the central problem-- The babies are all grown up throughout the climax of the film, so they're basically just monster people. That is much less appealing. Still, there's quite a bit of baby action at the beginning, and it's the best stuff of the series. There's a sequence where a pack of hired guns go out to wipe out the babies shortly after they're placed on the island which is absolutley priceless, culmnating in the final survivor fleeing in the helicopter only to find that, dear God!, there's a baby already inside which leaps on him from behind. Also, then the helicopter explodes, for no apparent reason. As with all the Cohen monster films I've seen this movie has got a lotta talking, focusing largely on Moriarty's wacky, twitchy and crazy performance. I find him fairly amusing, but he's definitely on display too much. The film is also helped by a fair bit of gore, but the overall relative absence of the babies reduces the charm of the film substantially.
Grade: C+
Yeah, this disc is definitely worth at least a rental. At this low of a price I'm sure I'll pick it up sooner or later, actually, but ya certainly oughta see it at least once.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
No Gerber mush for these babies, December 15, 2002
IT'S ALIVE 3 opens with a woman giving birth to another deformed mutant baby in the back of a taxi on a rainy night. When the cabbie tries to blast the little nipper into oblivion, the quick little sprout drags him inside the cab and makes a meal of him. Thus begins director Larry Cohen's belated return to his much adored B-horror series. The mutant is captured, caged and bought before a court which will decide its fate. The judge sides with the creatures dad, Steve Jarvis (Michael Moriarty) and decides it to be in the child's best interests that it is protected, so the monster is sent to a remote island inhabited by other mutants. The FX in ISLAND OF THE ALIVE are none too convincing, the top-motion models (which are okay)add to the B grade fun, and there are some amusingly cheesy gore scenes. The movie does tend to be a bit sluggish in places, and Moriarty gives a decidedly erratic performance. My final quibble is that the finale is very similar to the first two movies, but generally speaking, it's still a pretty good movie.
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