Review of Island of Death (1976) by Vitor A — 06 Sep 2012

There's a good chance you might be offended by this film. That is if you are offended by things like scenes of random sex, graphic hard drug use, casual racism, random murders, gratuitous nudity, attempted rape, actual rape, animal slaughter, bestiality or incest.

There's no doubting this film sets out to shock and offend - the director makes this point perfectly clear in the interview included on the Arrow Video UK release in which he describes his film as: "a piece of shit" and claims he made it simply to court controversy and as such grab a slice of the massive boom in exploitation films that came out of the 70s which brought huge financial rewards.

The film itself is set in rural Greece, on the island of Mykanos before the hordes of British holiday makers descended in the 80s. Here some English tourists of an all together different kind turn up in an attempt to escape the rat race of modern life and find an idyllic, unspoiled land of innocents. The young couple initially fall in love with the island and quickly fall in with the local ex-pat community and become part of the island life. their behavior becomes ever more irrational however as they realize that their new found friends had come to the island to live out liberal bohemian lives full of free love and plentiful drugs. Disgusted at their neighbors morals the couple decide to go on a killing spree to 'cleanse Mykanos of the perverts'. However it soon becomes apparent that the most perverted of all the inhabitants are the couple themselves.

There's no getting away from the fact that this is cheap trash of the most exploitative kind and for once it's not hard to see what made the censors so squeamish and resulted in this being listed amongst the notorious video nasties. It has all the hall marks of it's peers - a flat script, ludicrous plotting and wooden acting but despite all that it has something about it that makes it stand out. By today's standards it's anything but graphic or violent but like Night of the Demon the madcap nature of the film and the sheer chutzpah of it all makes for great viewing.

Despite the wooden acting and occasional plodding pacing there are some genuinely good bits of direction here. Many of the shots of the island are straight out of a travelogue and you almost expect a be-tanned Judith Chalmers to come wandering round the corner at any minute as part of some holiday show. The island is shown almost as a series of picture postcards, albeit with someone getting murdered in front of it.

It's not for everyone but I love it in all it's ridiculous over the top glory and gory.