Misterio en la isla de los monstruos

"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.

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.

This is the movie of my childhood. Everything was so colorful with beautiful landscapes of desert island, predictable, scary creatures, monsters, guys behind the masks and the bad guy in the middle, pulling all the strings. Of course, there is a beautiful girl in the very end, who comes as the reward for heroic action of the main character. I just love happy endings, where happy couple proves that love between man and a woman is the only thing which matters on this world.

I might have been better off watching Godzilla on Monster Island, but Paul Naschy wasn't in that one, and I'm a Naschy completest. So, let's be honest upfront; I am only here for the Naschy! Starring Peter Cushing as the uncle of adventurer Jeff (Ian Sera), who is off to make his way in the world accompanied by the hilarious David Hatton.

It's a silly Jules Verne adventure with lots of animal laughs and pratfalls.

The silly looking monsters, the guns that never seem to do any damage or run out of bullets, stupid homemade weapons, bombs that don't kill anyone, and the incessant whining of the professor (Hatton) begins to wear you down to the point that only a five-year-old would appreciate this film. The turkey bit was the last straw!

As for Naschy, I never saw him except for a brief time in the beginning.