FRANKENSTEIN
ISLAND (1981)Director: Jerry Warren
Retromedia
FRANKENSTEIN
ISLAND (1981)Throughout the 50s and 60s, Z-movie
mogul Jerry Warren was churning out one piece of celluloid horseshit after another,
producing and directing them in the laziest, most effortless fashion. Most of
Warren's films were comprised of tedious dialog, borrowed monster footage from
better imported productions, and sometimes he even had marquees stars such as
the overworked John Carradine. Although most of Warren's films run just over
an hour, sitting through them is an excruciating duration test ala Alex in CLOCKWORK
ORANGE. Some bad movie fans will admit to getting a kick out of some of his
work--others just moan when they hear the mention of his name. In 
1966,
it all came to a halt as Warren was entangled in a lawsuit with DC Comics when
his THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN infringed on their hit "Batman" series
at the time.
But the world had not heard the
last of Jerry Warren, and 15 years later, the times had changed tremendously.
In the modern year of 1981 when fantastic filmmakers were giving us polished
slasher films, effects-driven werewolf transformations, and blockbusters like
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Warren made a comeback and decided he only had to look
at his own decades-old, no-budget endeavors as inspiration. The problem is that
he managed to create something a hundred 
times
worse than he ever did before.
And yes, 1981 gave us the atrocity
that is FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, a film so bad that it wouldn't even be worthy of
the bottom of a 1957 drive-in triple bill attended by love-starved teenagers
not looking at the screen. The plot? Forget about that because it's totally
incoherent (are you surprised?). Anyhow, four lost balloonists (balloon footage
courtesy of scratchy stock footage) make their way to a seemingly deserted island.
Led by B-veteran Robert Clarke (who somehow manages to keep a straight face
through all this), these unlikely buddies look like FANTASY ISLAND rejects.
There's some mysterious force on the island, and any time someone mentions a
location from the outside world, they get a shooting pain in their arm. If you
can imagine the dialog that accompanies this, imagine production values that
wouldn't even cut it for the worst mid-70s live action Saturday morning kids
show--aimed at five and six year-olds mind you.
Our comical castaways soon get
treated to some Hollywood jungle women wearing animal skin bikinis (Jerry doesn't
even have the sense to relieve the boredom here with some exposed skin). They
perform a silly dance and smoke something from a bong made from a skull! There
are also some shipwrecked sailors there (including a seeming intoxicated Cameron
Mitchell), a bed-ridden 200-year-old scientist performing anti-aging experiments
with his silver-wigged wife Sheila Frankenstein von Helsing (Warren regular
Katherine Victor), and a small race of zombies clad in sunglasses, black turtlenecks
and knit caps (they look like the cronies of a forgotten villain from the 60s
"Batman" show). A Universal-type Frankenstein monster pops up out
of nowhere during the conclusion, and the actor seems to be doing a bad impression
of Chaney Jr. in GHOST OF 
FRANKENSTEIN,
but appears more like the creature in one of Jess Franco's inept attempts at
the legendary character.
Other stars include veterans Steve
Brodie (as a one-eyed sailor) and Andrew Duggan, and there's an orange-painted
lunch box that electronically spins and the same devil's pitchfork that I used
for a Halloween costume when I was seven years old! Oh yes, John Carradine is
in it and given "special guest" billing. It should have said starring
John Carradine's head because all you see is a super-imposed image of him laughing
or mumbling the same lines for a matter of seconds on several occasions. If
people thought that Ed Wood's comparatively tasteful inserting of Bela Lugosi
in PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE was bad, that puts this to absolute shame. And
the incredible thing is, Carradine was 
still
alive and didn't even pass on for another seven years--so why such sparse screen
time? Perhaps Jerry didn't even lay out Carradine's full $1,000 a day fee--if
he did, he certainly didn't get his money's worth!
An indescribable exercise in laughs
and stupidity (well, you be the judge), FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND has been released
on DVD by Retromedia. A shoddy production to begin with, the quality here is
poor but passable, looking to be taken from an old full-frame video master.
A welcomed extra is a brief but cool interview with Katherine Victor (who was
also interviewed for Retromedia's excellent TEENAGE ZOMBIES disc). Victor tells
some nice anecdotes (including one about standing in for a zombie during a white
contact lens close-up) and seems fond of the late Jerry Warren despite his ill
treatment of the various "stars" on the set. There's also a still
gallery that includes some behind-the-scenes- shots, and the back cover embodies
liner notes by Bruce Holecheck that are not only definitive, but also quite
amusing. (George
R. Reis)