Film Review: Island of Death

So many times you get a 'video nasty', and you watch it and you just have no concept as to why it was ever classified as such. Take Visiting Hours for example. Michael Ironside plays a serial killer stalking the halls of a hospital, and William Shatner pops up in a small role, but there's nothing there that is especially shocking or that would warrant a banning.

The same cannot be said for Island of Death. Banned under the 'video nasties' act of the 80s the film has never been released uncut till now, some 35 years after it's release, and you can see why. It's still a shocking watch, where most films (and I include the likes of the Evil Dead in this) you struggle to see why a ban was given, especially in this day and age.

But whilst Island of Death isn't an especially good film, it leaves an impression that you will be hard pressed to forget.

You know it's bad when this was the only acceptable photo I could find

A British couple, Christopher (Robert Behling) and Celia (Jane Lyle) travel a Greek island and start to dish out unimaginable terror to everyone they consider to be "sinners". Naturally this is pretty much everyone they encounter. Whilst they are doling out the pain, they take photos of the acts so they can revisit (or masturbate over) them later.

It's not much of a story (although the horror movie twist is there at the end) and there are several confusing moments within - at one point Christopher wakes up and wants to have sex, Celia not so much, so he goes outside, finds a goat and has sex with that instead. And then even stranger kills it post-coitus, as if it was going to tell everyone.

The shocks continue, one guy has his hands nailed to the ground and has paint poured down his throat, a gay couple are terrorised, a lesbian heroin addict is given a massive overdose and her face blow torched (the effect looks pitiful though), and worst of all whilst seducing a middle aged slapper, Christopher urinates on her. It's not family friendly stuff, clearly.

The film could throw all the shocks in the world at you (and, to be fair, it gives it a damn good try) but the fact remains Island of Death isn't very good. If you have a dark sense of humour however you'll probably get  a lot of laughs out of the terrible acting and ridiculous antics of Christopher and Celia. Everyone else will probably be horrified. An interesting curio from the video nasty era for sure.

**
A bonus star for the unintentional comedy and just to see how far films went back in the day. Other than that, it's pretty rubbish to be brutally honest, with a unhealthy amount of the shocking moments making little sense. Namely the goat.