Iguana

I get the impression that this movie is based on a book: Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa's novel "La Iguana", released on 1982. Here in Brazil it was released on 1989, with the title "O Iguana". Read this book when I was in school, at the suggestion of a teacher. A very good and interesting book.

No, it's not some movie about a giant lizard that eats people... though that's what the title makes me think of. This is a pretty decent low-budget movie about a toughened sailor with a facial deformity that makes him look kind of lizard-like. His shipmates don't like him much and he jumps ship one night... but they find him again, beat and brand him. After a lifetime of such abuse he decides that from now on he will live the rest of his life taking what he wants, doing what he wants and forcing others to do his will. He takes over a small deserted island and enslaves the few people who wash up on its shores... cutting off their fingers (or heads) when they get out of line. Very interesting movie... the main character is a terrible person... but at times he also becomes the hero. We see that he has become this evil man because of the way he was treated by others all his life. Lovely (but sad) ending.

I'd read a lot about this film and was excited to view it. While not a complete turkey this one may not be worth your time or effort. The script seems hurried and incomplete and requires a incredible amount of willing suspension of disbelief. Could not understand how this average sized man with one machete and an old flintlock pistol could maintain control over several hearty sea dogs. Adding to this mystery is why they readily submit to his authority without much attempt to gain the upper hand. Also one wonders how this group continue to survive on a rather smallish island that looks pretty desolate-lots of rocks and cliffs and shore but not much vegetation and no animal life-other than fish. In retrospect the whole thing seems pretty laughable. The Iquana makeup effect looks like a B-movie rubber appliance and the much touted beheading scene was done with a coconut on a dummy's shoulders. Listen for the Three Stooges "ka-thunk" sound effect when the head hits the ground. Really bad stuff here. I give it 3 stars for the cinematography as there are some beautiful oceanic scenes found here. If you're curious about this film then at least you have some idea of what you're in for.

I have immense respect for Hellman. The art-house establishment deigned to stoop down and pick Two-Lane Blacktop from the grindhouse cracks and curious bystanders have ventured into his early films to watch a young Jack Nicholson, but he's remained largely forgotten with long dry spells of not getting work or getting in paycheck movies. But here he is back in 1988, assembling a cast of marginal stars at one time or another (Everett McGill, Fabio Testi, Michael Madsen), by way of a story about a disfigured harpooner haunted by ridicule and ostracism who finds himself stranded on a deserted island and declares himself there sovereign king and ruler of a bunch of hapless sailors he keeps as slaves, Hellman creates a stark allegory on the darkest most base instincts of human nature: the need to oppress and avenge wrongs real and imaginary, to reassert one's individuality through strength if by no other means, to bridge one's alienation and lovelessness by using that very alienation and lack of love as a battering ram against those who denied them to him. The movie is heavily flawed, the narrative in the first half that switches between the deserted island and some unspecified Spanish colony is disjointed, and the movie, try as it might to mask the fact, has a low budget look, but Hellman does great job with his material. At times gorgeous to look at, with interesting interplays between the characters that keep the plot from veering too far into selfconscious allegory, the movie plays like an exotic adventure undercut with philosophic undertones that Herman Melville might have written, and indeed I think there's a similar story about a halfmad hermit-king who lived for years in the Galapagos related in his travelogue Los Encantadas.

When this film came out on video, it probably cause problem on the video store owner for which section of the store to put this film on. The film is action (sort of), horror (because of the video box cover), drama (unsimpathetic characters) and other stuff all rolled up in one in a overseas production directed by cult director Hellman. Bruce McGill stars as a misfit seaman with a messed up face who escape from a ship and wages war against mankind by keeping any castaway as his prisoners. Michael Madsen, Joseph Culp (robert's son) and even Italian leading man Fabio Testi is in this film! Maruska Dettmers was supposed to be in the film as she was listed in the trade papers, but backed out. Not recommended, but McGill's character lines are funny at times.