It's Alive III:Island of the Alive (1987)
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It's Alive III:Island of the Alive (1987)
Here we are: the final film in the IT'S ALIVE trilogy...
Writer/Director Larry Cohen returned to his most famous film property one more time nearly a decade after the last one (IT LIVES AGAIN-1978) and added a more satirical flavor. As it is, the most effective sequence is the prologue, taking place at night in heavy rain (real rain, btw), as a young woman delivers the latest mutant baby in a taxicab. The cop on the scene realizes what the baby is, telling us that these mutants are well known to the populace by this point. The next scene is in a courtroom, where we're introduced to the 'mutant baby's father in this film' played by Moriarty. He's the main reason this film is more humorous than the previous two. See him in Cohen's Q-the Winged Serpent (1982) to understand the dark comical slant he brings to a role. He overplays it a bit here, almost turning the whole thing into a farce; almost everything is funny to him here - his odd fatherhood has lent him a wry approach to everything.As usual, Cohen defies expectations: you expect the rest of the film to take place on that island, but the party is wiped out very quickly. The mutants mature much more quickly than normal humans and are already adult-sized; they grab the scientists' boat, with only Moriarty left to tag along (he is spared due to his son). Then his son throws him off; Moriarty drifts on the ocean a la Tom Hanks in the later Cast Away and ends up in Cuba (hello, Fidel!). Next thing you know, he's boating to a Florida town with the help of a couple of new Cuban buddies. I'm not making this up - it sounds half-baked & nonsensical, but also vintage Cohen.
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