Starring: Peter Crates, Larry Gambler, Patrician Rose, Keith Tveit Langsdorf, Dustin Edwards

Directed By: Mark Colegrove

Written By: Mark Leake

Released: 2008

Grade: B+

Isle of the Damned is the cannibal spoof follow up to 2005’s Pleasures of the Damned. It has a lot of common characteristics with all of the great Italian cannibal films from the 70s and 80s, especially Cannibal Holocaust. It serves as a homage as well as playing with some of the more laughable elements making it vicious, brutal, and cheesy fun. The film we are shown is the footage of Antonello Giallo, the filmmaker who made his second feature in the jungles of South America. It was confiscated and Giallo was questioned for abuse against the native people in this film.

Jack (Gambler) and his wife have just adopted Billy (Crates) whose father was recently murdered. He is having a difficult time trying to help him as he sees a distance between them. Jack brought him along on the quest he was hired on for to find Marco Polo’s buried treasure. Him and his crew venture across a series of islands, one which possesses the treasure they are after. After searching every island the last one left is Cannibal Island, where the treasure must lie. Shortly after getting there they witness the skeletons and current victimization of the people who have come across the cannibals. Before long many of them begin to fall victim to these people as well. They get attacked, severed, and devoured by these creatures. After one of the men, Thompson (Rose), attempts to rape a women whose husband is being eaten by the cannibals they come after him. He shows such a lack of courage that they don’t even find him suitable to eat. Instead he is made in to their slave. In order to establish this, each member must show their dominance towards him.

Jack and Billy find another girl in harm whose parents have been slaughtered. They attempt to save her and the only reason they are even able to save themselves is they run in to Alexis Kincaid (Tangsdorf) and his servant, Cain (Edwards). Kincaid brings them back to his secluded mansion where they are safe from the cannibals of the island. They decide to go back and save Thompson when all of the male cannibals have left. When they do so Thompson is determined to stay on the island until they find their treasure especially when he learns that Kincaid already found it once. Kincaid warns them of its evils and how no good can come from it. Jack and Billy just want to get out of there, go home, and make a fresh start. However, they might not be able to make it off the island without being consumed by the creatures who inhabit it.

The sub-plot between Thompson and Billy works for the theme of the civilized people being the true savages. Thompson is a horrible guy all around. He is greedy and always has to establish power on those weaker than him. Rather than helping a women in need who is in a very similar situation as he is, he tried raping her and shoots her so islanders will eat her rather than going after him. From the very beginning before they are in any trouble or desperate situation he is constantly after Billy. When he finally gets to him out of the control of Jack he not only rapes him but cuts him up to “make room” for this act. This actually happens after Thompson was publicly raped by countless men over and over again. Clearly there is no hope for this character as even when he learns how horrible rape is it motivates him further to exert this pain and humiliation on others younger and more fragile than him. He is the perfect example of how civilization corrupts you to becoming so inhuman.

Isle of the damned is one of the goriest horror films of this year. It is completely in the spirit of the cannibal films that spawned it. As many of these films were heavily banned Isle of the Damned even advertises itself as a film that was banned in 492 countries. One of the adultery punishment rituals that we see performed as well as a castration scene reminded me a lot of Cannibal Ferrox. When given the set up of this film it even states the director who shot the footage we are seeing and who was being questioned had to produce the actors in court to prove that they were still alive. This is clearly a connection to Cannibal Holocaust’s release when many of the actors hadn’t been seen and made to seem like they had died to produce this realism of a true story. The film keeps its own originality even with all of the common circumstances it holds to these cannibal films. Isle of the Damned is full of gut wrenching blood. As each person is attacked their insides and brains are ripped open and consumed by the cannibals. Even the sounds during this of slurping and crunching make this seem more barbaric, grotesque, and realistic. Skin is ripped off of the victims face and all of the remaining flesh is torn apart.

A pregnant women is attacked, her stomach is ripped upon, and worst of all after her intestines are eaten they take the baby from her pregnant stomach and consume it whole. After this they rape her dead body. After a head is completely detached from its body the cannibals toss it around in front of those who have clearly just failed in saving it. Even aside from the deaths themselves there is plenty of gross moments throughout the film. The most notable is after Thompson gets Billy high, Jack attacks him feeling that he is coming on to him and shoves his head in the bloody excrement that he disposed of in the toilet after his excessive rapes. From the very beginning and technically before the film even begins rape is continuous. Even some of the most disturbing exploitation rape films don’t showcase this for more than 30 minutes. In Isle of the Damned the film is full of rape scenes with different people as the villains and victims and of different severities. From having an entire tribe sexually attack Thompson, to the innocent women he rapes as well as Billy who he is always after, to the natives raping dead corpses, and even before all of this the sexual child abuse that haunts our character from the beginning, it is always a disturbing and brutal element of the film.

Isle of the Damned walks a very fine line and uses great craft to give it just the right feel. The gore and blood is grotesque, which could make a gripping difficult to watch film or it could add a fun factor to it depending on the personal taste of the viewer. For me it added a little bit of both as I was very impressed with the deaths, but the variation, creativity, and severity of each one took me by surprise. No matter what the context rape always adds a disturbing tone. With so much of it, in so many circumstances this tone stayed strong, never letting go of this. Even attempting comedy through out this sounds like a dangerous mix, but writer, Mark Leafe, and director, Mark Colegrove, dealt with this wonderfully, using parody to keep this light. The film is extremely goofy especially through the voices. Making fun of the bad dubbing of some of the Italian cannibal films worked wonders here. Every voice seems to be the opposite that you would expect with the person it is matched up with. A blonde man has the deep voice of an older black man. The black character that we do have has a Hispanic voice. A bigger muscular man has a high pitched squeaky voice. The dubbing itself is purposely overdone to make it seem unnatural, adding a cartoon like quality to the characters. The acting seems to be pretty horrible, but it is supposed to be and adds to the comedy. Peter Crates who plays Billy follows this more than anyone. Every gesture and especially his dialogue is over exaggerated. Through this as well as the script, although he is a teenager he is portrayed more as a little kid. It offers plenty of laughs, but the crimes against him seem even worse for this as well. Also, his confusion in his sexual desires works well off of this. There is also a spurring romance in the film with the silent retired Japanese assassin, Cain, and the scarred girl he falls for. There is a great quirky appeal to their love. The dialogue is very goofy and all of the fun the film has with itself contrasts with some of the more continuous brutal scenes and lightens things up, making Isle of the Damned hilarious fun and an extreme gore fest.