Misterio en la isla de los monstruos

Unfortunately, this one constituted another gaffe within my ongoing Halloween challenge since it's not really a horror film despite title, director (he'd later make the gory PIECES [1983]) and presence of genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy! In fact, it's a typical Jules Verne adventure (based on his much-filmed "Mysterious Island") which proves surprisingly palatable – thanks also to a lively score – though unbalanced by comedy relief from the youthful hero's bumbling/cowardly sidekick, a Professor of Elocution whose name is constantly mispronounced ("T. Artelet not tartlet!").

Cushing is the protagonist's rich uncle who has purchased an island, to which the boy is sent and where he meets a variety of dangers (pirates, cannibals, monsters) – eventually, there's a twist with respect to most of these, which thankfully explains the sheer poverty of the creatures on display! On the other hand, Naschy has a very small role at the start as a man who has struck gold – which is then coveted by his associates. The latter include Terence Stamp who, for obvious reasons, was Cushing's chief rival for the acquisition of the island; later on, he turns up on it (ludicrously shrouded from top to bottom complete with anachronistic goggles!) with his bandit horde to take the gold by force – to this end, he even plants a female 'shipwreck victim' to lure the hero into divulging the loot's whereabouts.

Coupled with the far better GORILLA AT LARGE (1954; see above) on Fox's-by-way-of-MGM "Midnite Movies" banner, it offers the film both in English and Spanish. At first, always the stickler for a film's native country being its original language, I started watching the film in Spanish but when a narrator began translating the credits into Spanish and the English subtitles proved to be of the descriptive "hard of hearing" variety, I soon gave up my puritan pretensions and watched it with the more 'user friendly' English soundtrack on. At least, one does get to hear Cushing and Stamp reciting their own lines this way...

This wasn't smart enough to be considered campy or tongue-in-cheek. Although, come to think of it, it did have every cliche of bad monster/castaway/uncharted island movies. I suppose that's an accomplishment.

Let me begin by saying that I had read Jules Verne's original source novel BEFORE seeing this movie... and the source is NOT "The Mysterious Island", as most of the would-be intellectuals who reviewed the film would make you believe.

While "L'Ile Mysterieuse" ("The Mysterious Island") was written in 1874, the source of this film is actually "L'École des Robinsons" (which could be translated as "The Robinson School"), first published in 1882... and the entire "plot twist" criticized by the others before me is actually Jules Verne's original idea... it seems he used the "plot twist" before M. Night Shyamalan! Seriously, people... this is a fantasy, a farce, lighten up! Jules Verne himself was winking at his readers throughout the pages of his novel, and the movie only took it further. Since I knew the source of the film, it was a great fun ride to watch a retelling by a director who thought his viewers would laugh with him, not at him (probably just as foolishly as Ed Wood, but that's another story!) I enjoyed this bizarre flick, it was just as fun as some Russian fantasy movies I'd seen as a child, except that it had the brazen attitude of a more adult-oriented fare, but without becoming a "Gwendoline"...

Also, movies are not created and do not exist in a void. When this film was released, in 1981, the era of the blockbuster was not yet upon us, Reagan and Thatcher had just been sworn in, and the Cold War was entering its fourth decade, flaring up again... The great era of the '70s, which had given us so many introspective and serious movies, was over, and people felt they needed more comedies, even hysterical comedies. It all probably started with "Airplane!" in 1980, and the ball just rolled on. There was at least one other title that came out in 1981, blending comedy, spoof and horror as a perfect companion for "Monster Island" - I'm thinking of "Saturday the 14th"...

All in all, the criticisms leveled here don't surprise me. Truly, it's probably not the kind of film appreciated in the U.S. culture.

"It's the worst movie ever" is an oft-used phrase. "It's a real turkey" has just about lost its punch. How about this for a plug line: "MONSTER ISLAND isn't a movie; it's punishment for a lifetime of horrible deeds."

I taped it for my 6-year-old son and we just got through watching the thing; I had to have a bath afterwards in case any stray remnants of this cheesy, inept, incompetently-directed, over-the-top spectacularly bad acting, ill-conceived design, Jules-Verne-insulting, direct-attack-on-filmmaking pile managed to shoot through the pixels and land on me. The looping was apparently done by performers for whom 'human' is a second language. Truly excellent actors Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp were fortunate because while top-billed, they barely had any screen time at all. I'm still floored by having to witness one of the most baroquely florid and horrendously just plain bad performances in the history of cinema: that of the estimable David Hatton as Professor Artelect. It all makes sense in a way: he must have been the title Monster; his victim the acting profession.

In summation, this is a reprehensibly dreadful z-budget debacle. Suffice it to say my young son found it unbelievably bad and he's about as easy an audience as they come. Don't just avoid this one: work hard to help find a cure for it.

Mr Kolderup (Peter Cushing) buys a tropical island for five million dollars. His rival Taskinar (Terence Stamp) also wanted the island - because he knows a gold treasure is hidden there. Still he couldn't make a higher bid than Kolderup. When Kolderup sends young Jeff (Ian Sera) to the island along with his teacher (David Hatton), because the lad looks for adventure, wants to become a man et cetera, Taskinar plans to make that adventure much more dangerous than intended...

Well, it's innocent fun with the typical ingredients: shipwrecked on a mysterious island, the heroes meet monsters and unknown enemies, a beautiful lady in distress, and last not least a monkey for comic relief. "Mystery On Monster Island" is not among the classics of the genre, but definitely less boring than most stuff they show on TV in the afternoon.