L'isola del dottor Frankenstein

You have to admire Jerry Warren's zeal for bad movie making. This gem is soooo incredibly bad it is a masterpiece. Or should I say "messterpiece! Coming off a 15 year hiatus after he was sued for "The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman", Warren returned to filmdom with this offering. Words ,indeed, can not describe. A must see for any bad movie zealot.Be astounded and baffled all at the same time! Jerry Warren is truly one of THE kings of bad cinema.

Briefly speaking, nothing in this movie makes any sense at all, either on the level of overall plot or of individual scenes or even lines. This would have to be one of the most relentlessly stupid movies ever made. As soon as it looks like something is remotely intelligible, the actors and director seem to do their utmost to bring in yet another non sequitur.

The dialogue seems to have been written by someone who's never actually heard a conversation between people before, and acted by people who've never participated in one.

However, it's extremely amusing. This is an extraordinarily bad movie, but that's not because it's boring. The pink lunchbox, the contact lenses with white-out on them, the rubber skulls, the guy who keeps laughing constantly for no reason, the suburban living room in the middle of the deserted island, the power that attacks your arm when you "mix the particular place, not here but on the outside" (that is, say the name of a city)... champagne cinema.

You could do much worse than track a copy down - but beware - some video copies have the goofiest scenes edited out!

With other bad films the novelty wears off fast. Not this time. True the budget is low, but not so low that new crazy elements can't be sprung on the viewer in every scene. Some of the props are not impressive. For example a barely-altered plastic devil fork (used as a magic wand?) and department store mannequins (experimented on?). Don't be deterred though, the sets and costumes are all fun and the plot moves fast.

John Carradine is in this movie less than any top-billed star has been in any movie. You will see that he was no doubt not on the same set. In fact, you will see his performance does not even demand that he be on any set.

The very end is so cheap that it will make you mad. Still, this movie pleased me and I laughed a lot.

I saw this movie when I was in the Navy in the early 80s. I still remember every horrible detail. The long hair of the soldiers. No two uniforms were the same. "The Power of the Golden Thread"... which was never explained. The aparition of Dr. Frankenstein, or his son, or grandson, or whoever. I prayed to God that something would make sense before I left the theatre. It never did make sense. I assumed as I left the theater, that some director's 14 year old son wanted to direct his own movie, and did so with about $5,000 of daddy's money. This is horrible even for an inexperienced 14 year old on a $5,000 budget.

YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE to appreciate how truly bad it is. You will be embarrassed for all associated with it. You will be angry with yourself for wasting your time to watch it. I can't believe I'm wasting my time writing about this horrible horrible movie. Can one suffer from PTSD merely from having watched a bad bad movie?

I read the reviews. I said to myself, "Well, this could not possibly be as bad as all that." Well, it is. It starts right away. The patterns on the balloons keep changing from shot to shot in the credits. And there are many of them talking on the radio. What happened to the other folks with radios? Did they not call for a rescue ship? Nobody knows... It never comes up in the movie.

Then these four goofs come on shore and one is still holding a raft in his hand and it talking about having to build a raft. Why? At that point they just arrived and have not searched around the island and already have a fully inflated rubber raft.

And they immediately ask "How will we get over these bluffs?" Why do they need to. Wait for the pickup from the people who are coming to get you. No mention of that. Seems like the opening credits and radio chatter is from a different movie.

Well, it goes from there off onto several different plot threads. They intersect from time to time, minimally. And there is that laughing fool. He even laughs while he is drinking his moonshine. Quite a talent. And what is he laughing at so much? That spinning, pink ammo box is just too much! And the confusion of plots (snakes, tarantulas, machine guns, trident that turns women into vampires, a brain without a head running everything, John Carradine speaking gibberish) continues until, thankfully, this movie is done.

My great thanks to the director for not making the movie ANY LONGER! And you won't believe the ending. I guess it is an ending. Or they just ran out of film. Not fulfilling at all.