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Mystery on Monster Island
A young European boy living in San Francisco is reluctant to marry his long-term girlfriend because he wants to travel around the world first. His wealthy uncle agrees to send him on a global expedition aboard his ship, but en route the boy and his travelling companion are shipwrecked on a remote island, populated by countless prehistoric creatures as well as gold-hunting bandits.
Release : | 1981 |
Rating : | 3.8 |
Studio : | Almena Films, F. Ariza, Fort Films Productions, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Production Design, |
Cast : | Terence Stamp Peter Cushing Blanca Estrada Ana Obregón Paul Naschy |
Genre : | Adventure Horror Comedy |
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It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
I'd been after this movie for some years as I am a fan of this type of film and Peter Cushing. I recently obtained a VHS copy off E-bay.A young man and a professor head on an expedition to an island just bought by his uncle. Lots of dangers lurk on the island including a volcano, unfriendly natives and, best of all, some rather shoddy looking monsters, more of them later. They also befriend a chimp and a native. Then, towards the end, the uncle comes to the island where I was taken by surprise with the ending...Now to those monsters, these include some seaweed men who attack the ship, a giant horned beast that looks similar to one that appeared in At Earth's Core (also starring Peter Cushing), giant rubber caterpillars and some humanoid large eyed creatures. Certainly not prehistoric monsters as I've read in some reviews.Despite being top billed, Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp (Superman 2) only appear in the movie for a few minutes at the beginning and the end. David Hatton plays the professor, rather annoying at times.In all though, I found this movie great fun.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.
Good Samaritan Peter Cushing pays $5 million for an island during an auction and hereby beats mean bastard Terence Stamp who knows for a fact there's a gold treasure buried somewhere. Cushing sends his nephew to the island to explore, accompanied by a clumsy professor as some sort of comic relief, but things already start to get awry from the ocean journey. One night the nephew finds the crew dead and the deck infested with cheesy seaweed monsters inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The ship explodes but the boy and his nutty professor wash ashore the island where they're welcomed by plenty of other abnormalities. There are dinosaurs, seaweed zombies, Arabs with sunglasses, gas-spurting caterpillars and a beautiful French female castaway. I got "lured" into watching "Mystery on Monster Island" because of the famous names (Cushing and Stamp in one movie!?!) in the cast and crew (Juan Piquer Simon made my personal favorites "Supersonic Man", "Pieces" and "Slugs") and also simply because it sounds awesome and purely nostalgic. In reality, however, this is a very misleading family/comedy/adventure movie instead of a mystery thriller. I can easily stand a little bit of comedy, but I really wasn't prepared for an uptight professor teaching table manners to a chimpanzee and diction to aboriginals. Another reason why you can tell this movie is family-friendly: the nephew remains faithful to his fiancée back home, even though the gorgeous French chick literally throws herself at him. I think it's highly unlikely any man will refuse (or able to resist) such an offer in this particular situation."Mystery on Monster Island" is somewhat reminiscent to the Sinbad movies; expect they're a lot more infantile. The special effects are really back-to-basic, with giant plastic dinosaurs and postcard images of waterfalls and cave entrances and even a little bit of exotic wildlife. The aboriginals set up a wooden fort faster than MacGyver and The A-Team combined and that where there's not a hardware store in sight. Where do they get their equipment? Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp perhaps receive top billing but naturally they only appear briefly in the film. Altogether not even five minutes, I estimate. There's another famous horror legend in the cast, namely Paul Naschy, but his character already dies within the first three minutes of the film. Absolute nobodies play the real main characters of the story. It's a total rip-off however you look at it. Avoid
I give this trainwreck a "7" just because the group I watched it with had such a good time HOWLING with laughter at how horrible it all was - everything is wrong - the direction, the acting, the "special" effects, etc. Two vets like Stamp and Cushing take the money and run - they are barely in it - the two male leads are like oil and water - one guy is dead eyed and no energy and the other David Hatton overacts so much you are stunned at the hammy performance. He must have known how bad the thing was so he decided to give a 1000% to make up for the lame script and bad effects - he acts with his eyes, he acts with his eyebrows, he acts with his MOUSTACHE - he plays the nervous, sniveling kind of sissy character that was very popular in comedies from 1930's and 1940's (Edward Everret Horton usually played them) but the thing is.....THIS MOVIE IS MADE IN THE 1980's!!!! We laughed so hard when the "dinosaur" monster finally showed up - it is so bad, so not real, so not scary that we saluted the filmmaker for even yelling "Action" - wow - is it lame and then the scene where they encounter giant caterpillars is also unintentionally hilarious. So for fans of Grade Z cheese, pull up a chair and laugh - for those looking for a good old fashioned Jules Verne adventure - you are out of luck,.
Monster Island starts in San Francisco where the richest man in America William T. Kolderup (Peter Cushing) has just brought an island in an auction, meanwhile his daughter Meg's (Ana Obregon) fiancé Jeff (Ian Sera) says that he wants to travel the world to find adventure & leave her behind, for a while. So, along with his bumbling teacher Thomas Artelect (David Hatton) Jeff sets sail to, well whatever he plans to do. However events take a turn for the worse when the ship they are sailing in is attacked by sea creatures & is sunk, both Jeff & Thomas end up washed ashore a mysterious island where they have to fend for themselves. The local perils include monsters, dinosaurs, erupting volcanoes, native cannibals & a bunch of mean pirates who want to get they're grubby filthy little hands on the islands underground deposits of gold...This Spanish American co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Juan Piquer Simon & is a really, really bad film. The script by Simon, Ron Grantman & Joaquin Grau was apparently based upon the novel Mysterious Island by Jules Verne which it never at any point resembles apart from the fact that there's an island in both stories. Where to start? I think Monster Island is a film that needs to be seen to have any idea just how embarrassingly bad it is. Right lets start with the stupid comic & slapstick tone & nature of the thing, it's all so childish & frankly silly that it isn't exciting in the slightest. Some of the stuff in this has to be seen to be believed, a home made tommy gun which fires bananas at the bad guys! There are comedy fight scenes, some terrible looking monsters & they even throw in a 'cute' animal sidekick which seems to have more intelligence than any of the human character's. Which brings me nicely to Thomas Artelect, yes it's true he is quite possibly the most annoying character ever committed to the silver screen. Talk about getting on your nerves, I think I'd rather have my teeth pulled out with pliers than have to put up with this buffoon anymore. I'd have thrown him into the volcano... Then there's the lame so-called twist ending which I figured out within twenty minutes, the stupid plot hole in which William could never have known or guaranteed Jeff & Thomas would have been washed ashore his island I mean what if they had drowned in the sea? What would he have said to his daughter Meg? Would he have said 'sorry love but my plan went wrong & now your fiancé is dead at the bottom of the ocean'? Well would he? The bad guys are dumb enough to be defeated by some bananas & coconuts & unless your under five your simply going to think it's the most stupid thing you've ever seen & quite possibly it is. This ones a bit of a stinker although it moves along at a fair pace & is harmless enough but, well, it's bad & there's no two ways about it.Director Simon has no talent & Monster Island proves it, there's no style, no excitement, it's incredibly badly made with a really cheap & nasty look & feel to it throughout & it's just so predictable. He throws in that awful twist ending & five minutes later everyone is walking off into the sunset like nothing ever happened, the whole film is badly thought out, poorly written & contains some of the worst monster effects ever. From awful giant caterpillars to a dinosaur that looks like it was made from wool. Jurassic Park (1992) this ain't! Lets not forget the seaweed people who are obviously just poor actors with seaweed placed over them, at least their faces are covered to spare any more embarrassment.I'm not sure what sort of budget this had, probably not huge. Monster Island is pretty inept from start to finish, again anyone under five is going to have a hard time sitting through this one to the end. I have to mention the music as the main theme tune which gets used repeatedly is annoying as hell, I hated it & it along with many other aspects of Monster Island grated my nerves. I'm sure fine actors like both Peter Cushing or Terence Stamp wouldn't boast about being in this & despite their top billing on the credits each only has about five or tens minutes worth of screen time, luckily for them. I have to mention David Hatton as Thomas, along with the character being horrible his performance is truly dire, I don't know what else to say I really don't.Monster Island, also known as Mystery on Monster Island, is a terrible film & it's as simple & straight forward as that. This is a film which insults the intelligence of adults & kids alike, probably safe to give this one a miss.