Let’s get one thing out of the way: if you’ve made it to the third It’s Alive film, you’ve already committed yourself to watching mutant killer babies scuttle across the screen like demonic crab cakes. At this point, you’re not here for subtlety or emotional nuance. You’re here because you want to see latex prosthetics, grotesque baby screeches, and Michael Moriarty delivering another performance that walks a fine line between genius and “is he okay?”
Island of the Alive (1987), the third and final entry in Larry Cohen’s mutant infant trilogy, is part horror, part social satire, and part tropical fever dream. It’s also a weirdly meditative character study wrapped in creature-feature schlock—like someone wrapped a Bukowski poem in a wet diaper and threw it at a courtroom drama.
The premise is this: years after the events of the first two films, the world has acknowledged the existence of the mutant killer babies—a side effect of some pharmaceutical corporate negligence, of course. Rather than exterminating them, a court rules that the babies should be exiled to a remote island to live out their unnatural lives in peace, presumably away from people, common decency, and OSHA regulations.
Enter Michael Moriarty, who plays Stephen Jarvis, the father of one of these mutant children. He’s the best thing in the movie—mostly because he appears to be acting in a completely different film. His performance is equal parts lounge singer, disgraced philosopher, and unhinged game show host. At times, it’s hard to tell whether he’s channeling raw paternal grief or just making it up as he goes along while waiting for a check to clear. Either way, you’re watching.
Jarvis wants to believe his mutant son has a soul—that despite the claws and the body count, there’s something human buried beneath all that rage and rubber. So when a scientific expedition is organized to check in on the exiled monsters, he joins the crew. And that’s when Island of the Alive veers off the mainland and straight into bonkers territory.
The island is lush, isolated, and crawling with grown-up mutant babies who now look like they’ve been doing CrossFit in the jungle. They don’t just kill—they mourn, they build shelter, they reproduce (sort of?), and they seem to have developed some vague tribal society. Cohen wants us to think about nature vs. nurture, parental responsibility, and the horror of our own creations. But mostly, you’re just wondering how many fake heads the effects crew had to mold to get through the third act.
The film is a mess of tones. At one moment, it’s a satire on American justice and Big Pharma; the next, it’s a tropical horror adventure with gooey prosthetics and throats getting torn out like chicken tenders. The mutant creatures themselves are part genius, part ridiculous. You respect the effort—this was the ‘80s, after all—but watching a grown-up mutant baby cradle its own newborn while covered in blood is less emotional climax and more “what the hell did I just eat?”
But credit where it’s due: Cohen doesn’t phone this one in. He swings for the fences. There’s real commentary buried under all the latex and nonsense. The film critiques the way society throws away what it doesn’t understand, how justice bends under the weight of fear, and how men—especially corporate men in suits—will always find a way to ruin something innocent. There’s also something strangely poetic about a movie where the villain is a newborn with fangs and a need to be loved.
The supporting cast does their job—mainly reacting to offscreen snarls and trying not to laugh at the rubber monsters. Karen Black shows up and does what Karen Black does: deliver melodrama with a furrowed brow and make you believe it means something. The island itself is beautiful, but feels like the backdrop for a Margaritaville music video gone horribly wrong.
And the ending? Oh, the ending. It doesn’t so much resolve as it… accepts. Jarvis becomes a martyr of sorts, surrendering to the reality that his son is no longer his, and maybe never was. The surviving mutants vanish into the mist with their weird little offspring, and we’re left to contemplate whether humanity is the real monster or just really bad at parenting.
So, is It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive good? Not really. Is it bad? Not exactly. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a long, drunken voicemail from your weird uncle who lives off-grid and once swore he saw Bigfoot in a strip mall parking lot. It’s oddly compelling, full of strange wisdom, and you’re not entirely sure if you should call someone afterward.
Final verdict: 5.5/10.
A beautifully bizarre, occasionally poignant mess of a movie. Worth watching for Moriarty alone, and for the reminder that even mutant killer babies just want to be understood—preferably somewhere far, far away from the rest of us.
