Island of Death (1976) Review
Couple Christopher (Robert Behling, as Bob Belling) and Celia (Jane Lyle, as Jane Ryall) at first appear to be your average British couple abroad, enjoying their luscious Greek surroundings and sneaking in a quick bout of vigorous sex in a public phone box. However this couple are not so average at all. Christopher has a nasty habit of killing people and enlisting the increasingly reluctant Celia to assist in his bloody deeds.
It doesn’t take much for Christopher to find a reason, any reason, to kill someone. He considers himself an avenging angel, on a mission for God, to cleanse the world of gays, lesbians, drug addicts and goats – yep, you read that right, goats! Paradoxically he ends up getting buggered towards the film’s climax and one ‘shock’ revelation later we learn he is just as immoral as he considers those that he murders in the name of the Lord.
Nothing you have ever seen before can quite prepare you for what’s on offer in writer/producer/director Nico Mastorakis’ Island of Death. There’s water sports (we’re not talking jet skiing here), death by paint ingestion, a goat raped, a lesbian’s face fried, gay rape and much more too. There’s plenty to outrage and offend everyone here but if you’re a fan of exploitation cinema, and we are, then this is an absolute must-see. Listing the outrageous content actually reads worse than it actually is, however, for a film that’s celebrating its 40th Anniversary it still has the power to take one’s breathe away at the sheer balls of it all. It never ever repeats ground, moving forward with sheer abandon to another depraved (but enjoyable) set piece. As is often the case for exploitation films the score is completely inappropriate for what’s occurring onscreen – bright and breezy rather than chilling or ominous – adding unintentional humour to proceedings, as does some rather naff dialogue.
Mastorakis, famous in his native Greece for TV work prior, had seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and was impressed by the amount of cash the film was raking in at the box office. He had in mind to make a film more shocking and outrageous than the Hooper classic for no other reason than to make easy money rather than be driven by artistic motivations. The budget for Island of Death was so low that Mastorakis ended up taking a small acting part as a cop so that he didn’t have to fork out eighty dollars to pay the actor originally hired.
The film was initially banned in the UK as a ‘video nasty’ and it wasn’t until 2011 that it was finally allowed to be released in the UK uncut. This afforded the film some notoriety despite the film being neither very gory or explicit, by today’s standards it is very tame indeed. The performances are rather dodgy but that adds to the charm of a decent exploitation flick such as this is. Deserving of its cult film status and definitely one for the collection Island of Death is a must-see and a must-see again movie.
