Being a fan of the original It's Alive and the sequel It Lives Again, I was looking forward to Larry Cohen's third and final mutant baby movie. The first film is filled with social commentary about medical research and how women were given this certain drug while being pregnant that causes their fetus to turn into mutant creatures. The second film takes place a year later with the father of the first film trying to help an expecting couple deal with their creature child. I am not sure what Larry Cohen was thinking with when he wrote/directed this third film. It was as if he was forced to make the third film and decided to make it silly and turn everything into a big joke.
It's Alive III starts off promising. A father of a mutant baby is in court and proves to the court that his child isn't a monster and shouldn't be killed. A kindly judge sentences the baby and four other mutant babies to a remote island where they will be unharmed. When the judge passes away, the father is then forced to go back to the island with a bunch of scientists to see how the babies are doing and possibly bring back one of them.
Michael Moriarty is the star and he is just a weird actor to begin with. He never seems to take a role seriously and in a weird way, I kind of get a kick out of that but his schtick gets old in this very quickly. Why is this father contstantly making jokes? Why can't he look at anyone in the eye when he speaks? The father seems more strange than the baby. And that is my biggest problem with this film, the film just seems so odd and out of place with the other two films. I don't get the joke.
The budget also seems to be at it's lowest here and we barely catch glimpses of the creatures but when we do, it looks really phony and silly. On top of that, we get scenes edited out of place. Two characters can be talking and then it cuts into their sentence and we see something else happen briefly and then it jumps back into the previous scene where it left off. Even certain shots even get re-used at times! The film just seems like a sloppy mess thrown together.
And to make matters worse, the film barely takes place on the island but at some cheap amusement park where we get long scenes of punks fighting people at the park or Michael Moriarty trying to pick up women or Karen Black throwing up in some man's car with him screaming and swearing at her. Was there even a script for this? Seems like everyone making this film was in on some joke that we the audience are not.
Skip this film and check out the first two movies.
