MONSTER ISLAND Review

It wasn't that long ago that I watched Creature From The Black Lagoon for the first time.

I was going through the stretch of watching several of the classic Universal Horror features, and after having gotten through some of the bigger name ones (Dracula, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, etc), I finally made my way to Creature. Honestly, I thought the sea monster tale was one of the very best of the entire run. It's right up there with The Invisible Man and The Bride Of Frankenstein as my favorites. You have to dig any movie where the protagonists' plot is to roofie their threat into oblivion!

The newest offering from the Shudder streaming service is very Creature From The Black Lagoon inspired. Monster Island is an old school beastie picture with a practical effects-driven swamp monster terrorizing two men who find themselves stuck in his territory.

The twist to this story is that it takes place during World War II, and the two men being stalked by the creature are on opposite sides of the war. Saito is a Japanese soldier taken prisoner by his own side for reasons that aren't immediately apparent; Bronson is an Allied soldier who is being held on the same Japanese ship. To punish Saito, Bronson is brought to him, and the two are shackled together by the ankles.

Shortly after being bound together, an Allied air strike team finds the Axis vessel and sinks it. Saito and Bronson survive the onslaught and are able to make it to an empty island in the Pacific. Upon gathering their bearings, they start trying to kill one another... until the monster of the isle strikes! They manage to survive the attack, but the reality of their situation quickly becomes clear: if they can't work together, they are likely to die that way.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Practical makeup and costume effects are fun to see still get some light, and we get that here with the creature effects on the antagonizing beastie. It might not hold up to extended scrutiny, but for what we see of it here, it looks decent and has great movement. The mouth moves extremely well, and there does not appear to be any flaws in the limbs or edges. It's a solid look!

Like I said: the camerawork helps with a lot of things. We don't stay on any one shot of the monstrosity very long, so we as viewers don't get any long looks to study the makeup and find weaknesses. That sounds like a flaw, but it's actually a good thing. Blending quick camera action with a decent practical effects helps keep up the illusion the film is creating.

+ This is a good tale of two enemy combatants being forced to work together and become friends. It's a hopeful little yarn that way about putting aside major differences and coming together. You kind of wish you could live in a world where people on the opposite sides of things--even opposite sides of a world war--can face something that gets them to join forces and show that true humanity is a force to be reckoned with.

Bronson and Saito form a compelling duo in this flick. Both actors--Dean Fujioka and Callum Woodhouse--give great performances and make their struggles with one another come to life on the screen. They start off as bitter rivals, but after an early appearance by the creature, the two manage to get on the same page despite the language barrier. Their attempts at communication are well written and even better acted.

- The action is shot very frantically, with a dozen cuts per minute. Hell, maybe more. It's really hard to focus on. I get doing that to keep the monster partially obscured and looking good, but even the scenes without it are edited like that. It's very distracting. 

I mentioned that Saito and Bronson start off as enemies, and when they wash ashore and realize they are still bound to one another, they get into a brawl. This fight is marred with bad editing and rapid-fire cuts. As noted, the creature is not even involved until the very end of this struggle, so there's no reason to splice this moment together like this, unless it is due to poor fight choreography.

- There's no real mythology or anything here. There's an island. There's a monster living on it. Survive the monster. There's no backstory or even a hint of what the monster's origin is. There is an egg sac! But that's really all we get. It might have been nice to be have been given more details. Maybe. Sometimes it's nice for things to be left up in the air as a mystery, but in this case, I kind of wanted more details.

Monster Island is a neat little addition to Shudder's repertoire of films. It's always a blast to enjoy some practical effects and monster make-up, and it's nice to see some lower budget horror that doesn't just rely on slow burn psychological scares. This is, instead, a throw back to the creature features of old, and I definitely feel like we don't get enough of those these days. The editing is a problem, but all told, this is a fine outing for the horror service.

🍿 SCORE = 52 / 100