Frankenstein Island (1981)

Now here's a cute little number I thought I'd never get my hands on, let alone get a chance to review. Why? Because this is one of those movies which many people have heard of but very few have had a chance to actually possess. Own. Clutch in their hot little hands.

In the annals of obscure films, this one not only takes the cake, but the icing, the nonpareils and the little powdered sugar doily design on top.

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea who in the world Jerry Warren was, let alone the legacy he left the world as a producer, writer and director of such films as Face of the Screaming Werewolf, Teenage Zombies and Creature of the Walking Dead, not to mention MST3K fave rave The Wild World of Batwoman. Looking him up, however, I was intrigued to learn that Jerry was a man who made a name for himself as a producer and director of some of the most incredibly inept films ever.

In concepts of proper blocking, dialogue, content, getting the most from his actors and creating a believable environment where the real and the fantastic hold sway, it is only a fitting description to say that Jerry Warren was ill-equipped. You only have to see one of his films to understand that.

So it was understandable to think, after directing ten films that would kindly be called failures, Warren underwent a filmic hiatus where he would never set foot behind a movie camera again for almost twenty years. Time spent plotting his resurgence on the film world, much like a huge lump of suet bobs to the top of a can of franks and beans after you open it, after all that time of the beans and franks weighing it down. That kind of thing.

And so it came to be in 1981 that Warren came back to what he no doubt loved doing and gave the world Frankenstein Island, not only keeping his running streak of quality alive but using it to create another episode in the Frankenstein film series.

However, in this series, whereas the other films before centered on the monster itself, THIS film centers on the actions of four very thick-headed men and the island they land on.

Things begin up in the air with hot air balloons and men talking in voice-over about how Doc (Robert Clarke) and his men (Robert Christopher, Tain Bodkin, Patrick O'Neil) were lost over the ocean during a bad windstorm during a balloon race or record-breaking event or something. They end up on an island with their dog Melvin (played by himself), and discover not only a race of polyester leopard print bikini-clad Amazons who look bred for light typing and filing, but also paunchy middle-aged-and-older zombies in black turtlenecks and sunglasses, a perpetually drunk and perpetually cackling old salt named Jocko (The Giant Spider Invasion's Steve Brodie), his bearded and be-afro'ed compatriot named Angus (whose greatest asset is that he isn't perpetually drunk and perpetually cackling), a lady of the manor (Katherine Victor - Batwoman herself!) named Sheila Von Frankenstein-Van Helsing...she doesn't like her married name but she does rock that white wig of hers, an imprisoned sailor named Clay Jansen (Supersonic Man's Cameron Mitchell) who appears drugged and/or drunk - and seeing that he's played by Cameron Mitchell that may not be a conscious acting choice but just a by-product of being Cameron Mitchell, a guy made up as the original Frankenstein monster just for verisimilitude and the late great Doctor Frankenstein's ghostly apparition as played by the late great John Carradine.

I'm not going to cut any corners or sugar-coat this: Frankenstein Island may be the worst movie in the history of mankind and celluloid that I've ever loved. Whole-heartedly. Passionately.

So many things happen that make no difference one way or another to this plot (from a screenplay by Warren himself, under the pseudonym Jaques Lecouter), it's like a compilation of images that have nothing to do with one another spliced together in one film. It's like Andy Warhol pointed a camera inside his head. It's like filming your TV as you randomly flip through channels. How else to explain a film that stitches together scenes with rubber skull masks on sticks, tarantulas crawling on rocks, a picture of planets in outer space with a pair of hands wriggling in front of them, a man's eye surrounded by superimposed flames, a pink metal box spinning on its corner, or someone lugging a giant Gatling gun (complete with a full chain of ammo and its tripod connected beneath it) across a room? I don't know if Jerry Warren ever suffered from Adult ADD, but it sure does look like his mind's eye did.

And not one bit of this dialogue makes any sense, in part or whole. There are lines here that not even Shane Black could have doctored into anything usable. You have a couple of scenes wherein a character will mention Kansas City or Chicago and their arm will be racked with pain. Why? Who knows? The group arrives on the island of the title in a nice size inflatable raft and, a few minutes after arriving, they talk seriously about finding materials to build a wood raft to escape the island on. Why? Who knows? Several scenes are devoted to balancing out the biorhythms of the 200 year-old spouse (George Mitchell) of Sheila F. Van H., by combining human blood transfusions with animal transfusions and explaining why that is a bad idea. Why? Who knows...besides the fact that it's a stupid idea in general.

You know what, though? It doesn't really matter. Because unlike other bad movies which possess most of the same qualities as this film, none of them come close to Frankenstein Island in terms of psychedelic badness, mind-bending inanity or stupid scenes so stupid that the word "stupid" doesn't do them justice.

Look at me; I'm practically writing a love letter to a movie where an Amazon island girl learns how to karate kick a guy in less than 10 seconds. Why shouldn't I be, though? It's not every day you see a movie that wears its badness on its sleeve like The Congressional Medal of Honor. And it's kind of endearing that Jerry Warren tried to make Frankenstein Island look like one of those high-end fright flicks of the Fifties that would seem at home on your friendly neighborhood drive-in screen, where jagged scene splices and "MISSING SCENE" cels would be a welcome touch.

And in the end, that's the thing about Frankenstein Island; this is a throwback to the kind of films Warren tried to make way back in his heyday. This one being in color, starring actors who most viewers may actually recognize and containing so many unnecessary spliced-in special effects that Don Dohler would have given his eye teeth for, it sure does look like a movie that is reaching so far over its head that it threatens to throw its own arms out of their sockets.

I love it, though; I really and truly do. Frankenstein Island seems to be making things up on the fly, not a one of the actors intending to be anything onscreen but a parody of whatever character they're trying to portray and the dialogue is only a practice in repeating inane plot points that should never have been brought up to begin with. I mean, why would you want to build a wood raft when you have a perfectly good un-deflated rubber raft? Why would an island make your arm hurt if you mention a major city if the movie isn't even going to give you a good reason why or even do anything with it at all? And what's with the zombies? And the Amazons? And why the hell did we need a Jocko, incidentally?

In fact, I know you're wondering if this even made back its budget. That's a good question: one of these days I'll have to track down one of the 12 theaters it played in back in 1981 and ask them.

Still, for all of it, this is one of the best bad movies ever made. Watching it is akin to reading a comic book where you're not sure if the story it tells is any good but it sure is a lot of fun to watch it unfold.

Make your plans now; find yourself a copy of Frankenstein Island right now and watch it. As soon as you can. I had to find mine online and buy it there, which should give you the idea that this is something that you will NOT readily find at Wally World down the street. You'll have to search long and hard for this one. But it's worth it. Really it is. Most diamonds in the rough usually are.

I raise my glass to you, Jerry Warren. In your life you may not have made the best movies ever, but you certainly did make the most fun ones to watch.

Or maybe you just had me at "Frankenstein".