Island of Death - Lisa's Review

*** LOTSA SPOILERS ***

Bit of an odd one this week, a contradiction if you will.  This is a pretty nasty movie with nasty ideas, nasty people and nasty kills, but it still manages to be quite tame in how much it shows.  You get an 'idea' as to what is happening a lot of the time, but not the full picture.  This is a bit odd for a Video Nasty, as surely the whole idea is to show to nastiness?  Don't get me wrong, I don't think you always have to see everything to make a good movie, but I struggle to see why they come up with some of the ideas they do, only to edit the movie in such a way that it actually looks like its been cut by the censors.

So what did I think of it?  Well it seems a bit sick saying it was ok given various scenes in the movie which include our main character having sex with a baby goat when his wife is feeling too tired to oblige, he then proceeds to slaughter the goat.  This may have been the first obvious proof that the main male character (Christopher) was a sick, sick man, but we get hints that he's a little 'angry' early on from his rather humorous name calling of a man who dare look at his wife in a restaurant of  'Bastard' (this guy is later seduced by his wife, Celia, all while Christopher watches and photographs them having sex.  When they are done, he is nailed to the ground and force-fed paint).

He also gets rather animated when he see's a woman cheating on her husband, calling her 'Bitch' over and over.  Its appears that he thinks the acts he carries out in the movie are 'cleansing the Island' of its sinners.  He is sitting on some kind of moral high ground and his slightly warped wife (who it seems is losing her taste for cruelty as the movie progresses) is along for the ride.

They go on to murder a gay couple, one by sword at Christophers hand and one by gun at Celias hand following a rather uncomfortable sexual scene at gunpoint between her and the young gay man.  All of these are again photographed for the couples use afterwards.  I'm sure you can imagine the 'use' of a couple of sick indivduals.
As the movie progresses Christopher promises Celia there will be no more deaths, as she has made it clear she is not enjoying what they are doing any more.  They agree to continue their sexual exploits and photograph them.

The first 'victim' of this randy twosome is an older woman who has the hots for Christopher.. and when I say older, I don't mean sexy older woman, I mean granny.... this scene is probably one of the most disturbing for me and had me yicking and yucking from start to finish.... both at the tongue waggling and come-ons of the old dear and the golden shower that follows.. rather than be disgusted however, granny loves it and rubs it all over her droopy, loose-skinned body.  A bit put out by this and the fact that she bit him where no man wants to be bitten, he beats her to death.

The no death agreement didn't last for long, as Christopher walks in on 2 men attempting to rape Celia in the bath.  He makes short work of them and more bodies pile up.

I'm beginning to feel a bit desensitized to it all by now. I don't know... this movie just doesn't seem disturbing  now.  You're just wondering who is going to be next and how.  So we're getting bored... what better way to wake the audience up by having our beautiful leading lady get it on with a lesbian (would you believe it, called Leslie!!)  again Christopher is outside taking photos... do none of these people have curtains??  I say get it on.. she pretty much just doesn't protest, but there doesn't seem to be much interest coming from her side.

Of course poor Leslie meets her demise by being forced to drink something (I wasn't sure what) and is given a lethal dose of heroin.  Christopher then delights in blow-torching her body for fun.  Delightful chap!

If we are not already enamored with Christopher, he comes upon a naked young woman having a shower and attempts to rape her.  She manages to escape so we are 'treated' to her running about all over the place naked, with Christopher in pursuit with a sickle for some odd reason.... this ends in the girl being killed by way of sickle penetration to the chest, through a door....

The rest of the movie is just Christopher and Celia running all over the island to avoid capture.  They end up hiding out in an old barn.  Christopher wakes in the morning to Celia being raped by a simple farm hand and rather than help her, he gets out his camera and takes photos!!!  In a sick twist of fate, the guy (who is obviously a bit camera shy) then knocks Christopher unconscious rapes him also.   He dumps him in a pile of rocks and leaves him half buried and returns to Celia who sleeps with him (I wasn't sure if she was feigning  enjoying it to save her life or if she actually did).

In a final twist we find out that Christopher and Celia are actually brother and sister.... Wheres the moral high ground now???  The movie ends with Celia having sex with the simpleton while Christopher is still buried in the rocks in the pourng rain.

So what did I think?  Well it wasn't awful, but it wasn't shocking or frightening either.  While some of the subject matter maybe deemed suitable for the DPP list, the actual execution of it did not.  Given the subject matter, we could all imagine much, much worse in our heads... or is that just me?

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SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: Shogun Assassin - Lisa's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the DPP list.

This weeks movie was selected because (although it never made the list) it was often seized by the police during DPP raids, and is often mistakenly listed as a "Video Nasty".

*** SPOILERS ***

So a break from the infamous list for October and kicking off this month is 'Shogun Assasin'. Now I know absolutely nothing about this movie, so as I started to watch, my heart sank. I HATE martial arts movies or arty japanese 'flying through the air' movies, which is what this seemed lining up to be. However as I watched, the fantastic narration by the main character 'Lone Wolf's little son won me over and I found myself enjoying the story.

The basic premis here without breaking down the entire movie is an aging and podgy but kick ass samurai (Lone Wolf) who is set on revenge against his Shogun who killed his wife. The Shogun is a very powerful man (who reminded me of someone out of Monkey Magic) who is served by Samurais all over, so he has quite a few fighters to overcome. The movie follows his travels with his young son after the Shogun and his inevitable defeat of them all one by one.

If its at all possible, the fight and death scenes were artistically shot and wonderfully fast (I hate dragged out fighting scenes) with lots of different deaths by way of Samurai sword (a group who share Lone Wolfs loathing of the Shogun also seem to have quite the love for 4 pronged claw weapons which show up a lot) There seems to be a love by the director for spurting blood which appears in most death scenes.

Scenes which stand out for me are Lone Wolfs insistence for his son to chose life or death by crawling towards a ball or a sword (as he's only a baby). The baby chooses to crawl towards the sword in a very powerful scene, so goes with his dad across the country in the most awesome of prams, counting his dads kill total so he can pray for their souls.

Another scene I loved was Lone Wolf and his sons silhouettes standing against a beautiful backdrop looking out into the distance while blood spurts onto the screen from the side from his latest kill which hasn't even hit the ground yet.

A completely slice in half head was spectacuarly awesome and a sad irony from a guy who finally heard the noise a slit throat makes, but sadly its his own were other scenes I enjoyed.

His toddler son even joins in by engaging some swords from his pram by pressing buttons to release them at opportune moments. One such set of swords attached to the prams wheels, manage to completely amputate the feet off one enemy as it careers towards them. As a mother of a young son I was cringing at his use of his precious son in these scenes.

This movie, although some may find gorey in places, is definately not one for gore fetishists or seekers of the most realistic of gore. I found though that this is not what the movie is about, nor does it matter that the blood bears no resemblance to the real thing.

The style of this movie is unlike anything I have watched before and I'm not going to sit and dissect the story bit by bit, but I loved its brutal, yet artistic scenes and moving narration throughout. It was won over completely for me by the child actor who was simply wonderful as Lone Wolfs son. I also loved the soundtrack to this one which fitted the movie perfectly.

All in all I loved the general feel and style of this movie and would recommend it to anyone with a love of movies and half a braincell.

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