Please Don't Eat the Babies

Amateurish account of two young women abducted by thugs after the gold coin worn by one of them is recognised as a rare antiquity. After a lot of threats and intimidation, the girls finally agree to reveal the location of the treasure, recounting in flashback the horrific events they survived as a pair of precocious teenagers when their group was drugged and dismembered by a family of deranged maniacs on a remote island.

An earthquake, a bizarre ritualistic castration, random close-ups of cockroaches, a village idiot and a pair of not-so-wholesome old folks with sinister intentions are just a few of the dubious encounters you'll experience in this offbeat thriller. 30's cowboy staple Hank Worden looks frail but delivers his corn-fed dialogue ("I done got him that time granny, now how 'bout some pie") with professionalism, while the only other recognisable face is that of Kirsten Baker ("Friday the 13th Part II") in a frivolous (and topless) supporting role.

Low budget props and special effects (e.g. the sponge-dummy "body" lying on the ground in the barn when Todd is attempting his escape) earn a high camp value while a couple of gruesome meat hook / meat cleaver incidents and a gratuitous sex scene up the sadism ratio considerably. Quirky and amateurish, but curiously entertaining nonetheless, the film's legacy of wisdom is a warning to all: don't accept herbal tea from old folks.

I'm generally pretty indulgent towards these low-budget, shaggy-dog horror movies from the 70's and 80's. After all, it was hard to make movies back then with very limited resources (I'm less indulgent today when any talentless idiot with a digital video camera can easily foist any kind of unwatchable dreck on an unsuspecting public). The problem with this movie is that, not only is not very competently made, but it's not just entertaining on any level(even an unintentional one).

The current version of this "Island Fury" is actually TWO lame movies--a wrap-around story which looks to have been shot around the time of the film's 1989 release, and the main story which was filmed earlier in the 80's (1983 I guess). In the frame story two older teenage girls are on vacation in the Far East when they are lured off on a treasure hunt to an island where it turns out they'd been years earlier when they were children with one of the girl's older sister and the sister's teenage/college age friends. This is the main story which involves the group running into a family of kindly old cannibals.

The plot is pretty pedestrian. The acting is terrible (having ten-year-old protagonists might be novel if they weren't even worse actresses than your usual teenage horror fodder). Compared to the protagonists the elderly cannibals aren't bad, but as the villains they really needed to be far more compelling. One of the older girls in the main story is played by Kirsten Baker who played a skinny-dipping, extreme short-shorts wearing camp counselor/"Jason" victim in "Friday the 13th Part II". She has a very nice bikini-clad ass. I say this not to be a sexist pig (well, not JUST to be a sexist pig), but because this movie is so frickin' boring I spent all my time staring at it whenever it was on screen (which unfortunately wasn't very much). Baker's bikini-clad tail gives the movie's only really compelling performance (not even Baker herself, she is pretty somnambulistic). Of course, Baker's ass gave an even better (and un-bikini-clad) performance in "Friday the 13th II", and that was a much more entertaining movie to boot. I give the filmmakers an "A" for effort here, but I really hope they kept their day jobs. . .

Sugar and Bobbylee,two teenage girls end up being kidnapped by some criminals led by Sid and taken back to an island that they had visited many years before when they were ten years old.It seems that the island was inhabited by a family of bloodthirsty cannibals including grandpa Jebediah and his wife,a small kid and an older mentally-ill kid.The mayhem told in drawn-out flashbacks ensues...Very muddled and confusing horror flick with a bit of gore and nudity provided by Kirsten Baker of "Friday the 13th Part 2" fame.Fortunately the film is never boring and there is enough cheese for my liking."Please Don't Eat The Babies" sat unreleased for six years after being filmed in 1983.7 out of 10.Watchable piece of trash with bad acting and awful climax.

I'm going to champion ISLAND FURY here & take a chance by recommending it. Since the movie is issued on the same DVD as Wayne Crawford's BARRACUDA: THE LUCIFER PROJECT it's one that should end up on your shelves anyway. Linking themes between the two films are summer, boats, the ocean, and girls in swimsuits.

This is the less conventional of the two, telling the story of a pair of teenage girls in their mid 20s who find themselves abducted by a gang of pinheads for a golden doubloon one wears as a charm. The gang concludes there must be more where it came from, kidnap the two bimbos from a Chinatown carnival in an odd sequence, and are really mean to the ladies until one of them spills the story of how they ended up trapped on a secluded island as kids & terrorized by a family of cannibalistic hermits.

The film seems to be drawing it's inspiration from the 1982 shocker HUMONGOUS but with the addition of more teen friendly elements such as extensive profanity and Kirsten Baker, fresh from her nude swim in Friday THE 13TH PART 2 and with a new hair perm, who spends the entire film decked out in a red bikini to display her fabulous body. It may not seem like reason enough to bother with the movie but if like me you are a Wayne Crawford fan you'd end up with the DVD anyway & might as well enjoy it for what you can.

I liked the cannibal family, let by a Ma Barker type & good old Mose from THE SEARCHERS who both scuttle about fretting over "the young 'uns" who have come to visit. The movie's sense of humor might be lost on those looking for blood, guts and boobs, and quite frankly I wish the filmmakers had concentrated on either of the two story skeins; it feels as though two movie ideas were compressed into one, resulting in a lackluster conclusion that is far less interesting than some of the bits that lead up to it. I say give it a chance, no it's not a particularly clever film but in the right frame of mind it's a harmless distraction. With Kirsten Baker in a bikini. Hot.

5/10

This is a particularly inept and difficult film to watch. Like many other of the early-80s American horror films of the same bracket, there is little in the way of atmosphere or gore to keep one interested. At this particular time, the gulf between US and European low budget horror was enormous. This particular movie takes the worst from the contemporary US horror films (such as HALLOWEEN) and 50s monster movies and creates an absolutely lamentable waste of time. Don't bother.