I sometimes feel that Larry Cohen the director doesn't always give the best treatment to Larry Cohen the writer. His script tells a good story and is full of imaginative touches and issues. I don't think as director he gets all the juice out of it.
Maybe I'm being unfair but with this third It's Alive movie (I haven't seen number two yet) I felt he put in horror and suspense because he felt he had to in order to get it made but he was more interested in comedic/social issues and seeing how way out Michael Moriarty could get in his performance. The creature attacks feel perfunctory - almost semi comic. The script deals with life and death situations and some big emotive issues (fear of children, broken marriages, being killed) but the treatment is almost flippant. It's closer to The Stuff in that way - more social commentary and Michael Moriarty than actual horror/drama/suspense.
Moriarty plays a father of one of the mutated babies who argues that his child should live. It gets shunted off to an island where all mutants then years later Moriarty takes part in an expedition to see how the creatures are faring.
It loved the idea of an island full of mutants and wish there had been more of it - a sort of Escape from New York situation. What do the scientists do? What is the ecology like? What do tourists do? How do the babies interact? But after act two on the island, act three involves Moriarty on a boat and going back to the mainland where the baby tries to track down its mother (Karen Black). This was less interesting, although there's some good emotion when Moriarty and Black reconnect with their child... and it's child.
Moriarty is given free range and his admirers will love this movie - his character is an actor and dad, unable to get work, full of shame, prone to acting crazy. Cohen gets points for making the films in the series so different from each other.
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