Frankenstein Island (1981)

Very disappointed :(

Awesome Movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Just like the family business of the Reagans is law enforcement the family business of the Frankensteins is weird science. In fact they've now got their own south sea island where they can carry on their work without the prying eyes of neighbors or the law.A few players like Cameron Mitchell, Steve Brodie, and Andrew Duggan hit career bottoms in this one. John Carradine at this point was doing little else but garbage like this feeling I guess he had nothing to prove.Four hot air balloonists crash and wind up on the island where they find the Frankenstein family set up shop. Some crazy mutants are running around, the failed previous experiments and a tribe of scantily clad amazons trying to survive.A terrier named Melvin was in the balloon as well. He gives the best performance in the film. Melvin also with a single gesture at the beginning tells us what we are about to see.

The way I figured this should a good movie. The 2 fact on it's behave One is a Frankenstein movie. Two the critics hated it. Of course there is that 49% of the time when the critics are right. This is one of these times. The ending to this is confusing. The acting is pretty bad. It probably could have used better writers and editors had well. I like Frankenstein sequels most of the time. But this is not a very good one. People do underrate this movie it is not as bad as a lot people say. But mind you it is dame near close. I would have say this is better movie then The Godfather II but that is not as hard as people would like think. This movie is not scary. Don't wast your money. See Frankenstein (1931) if you want to see a good horror movie. Even Frankenstein (1910) is better and that is not a very good movie. Bride of Frankenstein is great. So is Revenge of Frankenstein. But this one is pooh pooh.

Jerry Warren is known best for his awful '50s and '60s B movies, though his last movie "Frankenstein Island" was made in the '80s after a long break from his other efforts. You might have thought he would have learned something during the years of inactivity, but apparently he didn't. For one thing, you could almost swear this movie was made in the '50s, with the music, attitude, and cheap special effects. (I might have been fooled if the movie had been shot in black and white.) Anyway, you might think that this would be a campy exercise, but it isn't - it's pretty painful to sit through. The first twenty or so minutes are passable and are pretty easy to follow, but after the twenty minute mark the movie slowly starts to collapse and become a mind-numbing mess that makes no sense. Why do the protagonists decide to build a raft when they already have a raft? Why were they hot air ballooning over the ocean? Why do they not question the shipwrecked sailors immediately after they encounter them? Why is the all-female group a primitive tribe when they are descendants of space aliens? Why are the protagonists so blasé about practically everything they witness? Why does John Carradine barely appear in the movie? Why is the movie so DULL? I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

Where on Earth do I even start to try and attempt to write a review of Frankenstein island? It's not going to be easy but I'll try to explain the basic plot to begin with. We open with shots of hot air balloons, supposedly over the ocean somewhere, but we never see the ocean and balloons in the same shot together so we have to take their word for it. It seems their looking for a balloon that crashed in a tornado around this area, at this point I asked myself what is there to 'crash' a balloon into in the middle of the ocean? And why are they using balloons to search for them? Why not a helicopter which would make a lot more sense? Then again nothing in this film makes sense. Anyway, one of the balloonists says "the water, man! The ocean! Anyway you shake it, those poor devils either ended up on it, in it or under it!" This sort of inane dialogue that sounds like it was written by a five year old continues throughout the entire film. After that they presumably give up as their never seen or mentioned again. Then we get the opening credits, after which we are introduced to our main characters. Four men stumble onto a beach somewhere, carrying a perfectly good inflatable raft, this obviously how they made it to the island. Curtis (Tain Bodkin), Dino (Patrick O'Neil), Mark (Robert Christopher), Dr Paul Hadley (Robert Clarke) and Melvin their dog, for some unknown reason they decide to leave their life raft behind, which is a great idea considering their trapped on an island surrounded by the ocean, and enter some caves nearby. While walking along in the surprisingly well lit cave some strange device projects the image of Dr Frankenstein (John Carridine) momentarily, for absolutely no reason, you had better get used to things happening for no reason, as it happens a lot. They all exit the cave safely and are greeted to a barren landscape of trees, bushes and fields. The directors local wood then. As they approach some trees while talking, Curtis suddenly grabs his wrist and scream in pain. This is accompanied by weird electronic sounds. Scary. The sounds stop and Curtis is fine again. As 'explained' later in the film it was down to Curtis mentioning the name of a place, in fact it happens to anyone who commits this mortal sin. Then they notice that a woman dressed in a Leopard print bikini is tied horizontally between two trees, and is surrounded by plastic skulls on sticks. Not something you would expect to see everyday. It turns out that she is a member of a tribe of young beautiful primitive females who speak perfect English. Oh and their also half alien, this film is so insane its untrue! At the half alien/half primitive female's camp, just a few rocks with a fire in the middle, Dino looks on at a woman looking at herself in a mirror. Mark walks over to him and Dino says "thats the weirdest thing I've ever seen", when the film cut back its a different woman, this time she's holding a small snake. At this point I again asked myself another pressing question, why would someone describe looking at a woman admiring herself in a mirror and a woman holding a snake as the weirdest thing he's ever seen? When earlier in the day he had witnessed a half naked woman tied between two trees and surrounded by skulls? I think this film was made up as they went along. More barmy characters are introduced, Sheila Frankenstein (Katherine Victor) the great, great granddaughter of Dr Frankenstein, two old guys who run around for her, Sheila's husband Dr Von Helsing (George Mitchell), Clay Jason (Cameron Mitchell) who's supposedly been imprisoned on the island for seventeen years, and bunch of idiotic stupid looking zombie guards who wear blue jeans, black turtle neck sweaters silly black hate and over sized sunglasses, and a few even sport fake mustache's, you have to see them to believe how idiotic they look, and eventually the Frankenstein monster itself. I could go on forever about how bad this film is, the script makes no sense at all, about half way through the film the four start to discuss leaving the island and building a raft, yet at the start of the film they are clearly seen with a perfectly good rubber dinghy, and a sequence where about ten people hide behind one tree to escape the attention of a zombie guard. The Frankentein monsters rampage is depicted by it knocking over a table with some beakers on it, and just waving its arms about. The ending is awful too, but then what did you expect? The fight sequence here is laughable, the actors look more like their dancing with each other, check out how far the punches and kicks miss by! At one point for no reason, one of the zombie guards grows vampire fangs, obviously the sort you buy on Halloween from any good corner shop. One zombie guard also uses a small plastic devils trident, probably brought from the same shop as the fangs and plastic skulls. I could go on and on about how bad, idiotic, stupid, lame, boring, and poorly made this is but I think you get the idea. Its not all bad however, at one point Doc comes out with one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a film, while Sheila is showing our hero's her garden, Doc picks up a large vegetable and says "those are the most beautiful vegetables I've ever seen". Absolutely hilarious, as is the whole film, you really have to see it to believe it, and even then you might not. How Jerry Warren had the nerve to film this rubbish I'll never know. Not bad in a good kind of way, just plain bad.