Sentenciados

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Island Of Blood; before launching into my critique, here's a breakdown of my ratings:

Story - 0.50 Direction - 1.25 Pace - 0.75 Acting - 1.00 Enjoyment - 1.00

TOTAL - 4.75 out of 10

The story is a mess. The writer and director, William T Naud, tried too hard to add the mystery and overcooked it. I believe he thought he was casting red herrings throughout the story to throw the audience off the killer's true identity. What he was doing was supplementing illogical dialogue and narrative, which made it confusing and silly. For example, the casting director keeps oversimplifying the cast's lines and then blatantly comes out with a quip to draw the audience's attention to him, "They'll know whose dying when they see it." The subtlety of this pretence is as subtle as getting hit in the head with two gold bricks. Then, there's the section where we learn how the performers obtained their roles. They didn't audition: They simply received the invite in the mail. We're intended to assume these people have something in common. It would have been a good ploy had Naud built upon it. But he doesn't. The ending is the worst thing about the picture. When the murderer is exposed, we realise that unless we had psychic abilities there was no way for us to deduce the killer's identity. I didn't feel too bad because I'd pretty much given up on the Whodunnit side of the story by then. And that is a botch-up in itself as the alternate title is Whodunnit. That title alone says, get your thinking caps on and notepads out; who'll be first to get the murder?

Naud is a smidgen better behind the camera. Generally, his technique is above average. There are a few enticing and eerily low lit scenes where he uses shadow and light admirably. His major pitfall is the pacing of the film. Island cried out for a varied tempo to add extra power to the scene's mood. The single pace is too slow for most of the film, which makes it less exciting and scary than it should be.

The cast isn't brilliant. Most miss with their portrayals of the characters. Franklin Phlem needs to be more of a presence on the screen. He needed more charisma and oomph. You see Ron Gardner trying to flesh him out, but he mainly comes across as dull. A couple of the characters need to be more menacing. One needed to be more of a diva. Though the story was overcooked, the performances were underdone.

I couldn't in all integrity recommend the Island Of Blood. It could have been such a good movie had the story and cast been more robust. Should you stumble across it someplace, then it will pass an hour or so, but don't expect too much of it.

Please feel free to visit my Killer Thriller Chillers list to see where I ranked the Island Of Blood.

Take Care & Stay Well.

This little-seen early-'80s slasher is fully deserving of its obscurity: the unimaginative by-the-numbers plot sees a group of young film-makers gather on an island where they are bumped off one-by-one by an unseen maniac who likes to play a really bad new wave/punk song on his tape player while he is at work. The acting is basic (one of the actresses can't even blow out a candle convincingly), the direction and editing are clumsy, the characters are all unlikeable, and the dialogue is absolutely terrible (my favourite line: a guy hands a girl a nail gun "Take this - it fires nails like a gun." Talk about stating the obvious!).

To be fair, the deaths are quite nasty in concept, however the majority of the movie takes place in the dark, and many potentially disturbing scenes are hard to make out. A bloke is boiled to death in a swimming pool (the only death that takes place during the day), someone is speared, another guy is attacked with a chainsaw, a man is stabbed by a machete, and a girl taking a (nudity-free) shower is burned by battery acid, but the effects aren't great and gore-hounds will be left disappointed, at least until the final act in which we get to see a couple of the victims a little clearer (a guy's severed head with nails in his face and a girl with nails in her forehead).

In an attempt to differentiate his film from countless other slashers of the time, writer/director Bill Naud chucks in a twist ending that is totally implausible. And if you haven't already had a gutful of that terrible new-wave song (Face to Face by Factor Four), it plays in full over the end credits. Aaarrrgh!

In the movie's best scene, a girl is showering and we are treated to an amusing killer's point of view shot. He is looking at her through a hole in the wall, but then turns to the pipes where a make-shift plastic jug labeled "battery acid" is attached. Soon the girl is covered in black goo and blood and dies an agonizing death. "Island of Blood" is not one of the most gory slasher, some of the deaths are pretty sick, while others are more standard. Sure enough there is a twist ending and horror fans will be pleased since it involves exploitation films. I won't say how. The movie did finish on an exciting note, but it saves all its clever moments for the end. Not totally crazy from start to finish like I had hoped.

A group of either annoying or bland actors are taken to an island to film a low budget movie and are killed, one by one, by someone obsessed with the lyrics of a punk rock song a la And Then There Were None.

It's not the concept of Island of Blood that's bad, but the execution is as uninspired as murder mysteries can get. It's impossible to feel anything for the victims as they're barely given names let alone character development and even though some of the murder scenes try to be a little creative, that's about the only thing I could recommend this film for. If you're interested in seeing a guy boiled alive in a pool, a guy getting a spear through his eye, and a woman being brunt with battery acid while showering, go ahead and give it a shot, but keep your finger on the fast forward button for everything in between.

Another worthy entry in the seemingly endless list of horrible 80's slashers, "Scared Alive" (a.k.a. "Island of Blood" and a.k.a. "Whodunit") is a wondrously inept and totally redundant low-budget flick with all the right ingredients: a senseless basic premise, unmemorable characters, a complete absence of logic, laughable dialogs, various but totally non-shocking killing methods and one remotely ingenious little gimmick (a constantly repeated rock song of which the lyrics reveal how the next victim will die a gruesome death). The movie starts with a bunch of idiots (= aspiring actors/actresses) gathering on an island, allegedly to start shooting a movie after the weekend when the rest of the technical crew arrives. None of them has a clue what the movie will be about, why they were selected or what they will do on this geographically isolated island location for the rest of the weekend, but hey, that's totally normal right? Then, and luckily quite fast and at a regular pace, they're being picked off one by one by an unseen killer. His/her curious modus operandi involves hanging a walkman somewhere near to the next victim that is repeatedly playing the same song entitled "Face to Face". The singer states with what weapon the character is going to get killed, resulting in a boy drowning in a pool filled with boiling water ("Boil me! Boil me!), a poor girl showering in battery acid ("Burn me! Burn me!), another poor chick getting her face nail-gunned to the wall ("Nail me! Nail me!) etc … Some of the murder sequences are wickedly entertaining, but overall seen is "Scared Alive" just another very dumb and forgettable slasher. The attempts to mislead the viewer and throw in red herrings fail miserably and literally none of the characters deserves a bit of sympathy. The idea behind the unforeseeable "twist-at-the-end" is rather admirable, but still very implausible and badly processed. I also think the make-up artists were all schizophrenic, as some murders are illustrated quite sick and explicitly, whereas certain others are lame and occurring off-screen. Let's just conclude it's a really bizarre and amateurish slasher movie only intended for avid genre fanatics. Oh, and the complete lack of nudity – especially with one shower sequence and one alleged sex sequence - is unforgivable!