Frankenstein Island
Frankenstein Island
PG | 27 November 1981 (USA)
Frankenstein Island Trailers

A hot air balloon crew and a dog find themselves on an island with scantily-clad part-alien women, zombies, and other monsters.

Reviews
Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall
Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
Whitech It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.
KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
bensonmum2 Frankenstein Island is an incomprehensible mess of a movie. Anyone rating it higher than I have is kidding themselves. There may be a laugh or two in the "so bad, it's good" sort of way, but this doesn't make up for the overall disaster than is this movie.Most any review you'll read on Frankenstein Island will point out the numerous faults in the film. While I'm not going to even attempt to go over all of that well-worn ground, a few things really hit me that I want to mention.1. Plot – What a disaster! Frankenstein Island feels like someone took about five movie plots and tried to jam them into one movie. Plot threads go nowhere and are never resolved. And in the end, we're left with a movie that has no ending. No attempt was made to wrap things up with any explanation or resolution. It just ends.2. John Carradine – He may be listed as one of the stars, but he's never really in the movie. A poorly projected image of Carradine rambling on about a golden thread and power inserted about every 20 minutes doesn't' really mean he's in the movie. The 8X10 glossy of Carradine conspicuously placed in a number of shots doesn't cut it either.3. Cameron Mitchell – Poor, poor Cameron Mitchell. He really must have been in a hard way to appear in this thing. He's one of my genre favs – love him in Blood and Black Lace. His role here is embarrassing.I could go on and on, but there's really no point. I could write pages about things like: Sheila Frankenstein's name and hair, zombies dressed like WWII French resistance fighters, Amazons in leopard skin bikinis (where were the leopards?), Steve Brodies ridiculous one-eyed Jocko, a "backup" brain, building a raft when you already have a raft, long stretches of film with an uncomfortable lack of dialogue, etc. There's just too much.
dmanyc If you thought The Wild World of Batwoman was a bad movie, you haven't experienced Frankenstein Island. You have a Murder's Row of actors who have a tendency to star in bad movies. If you're a MSTie, you know these people. Cameron Mitchell, missing his glued-on beard and warrior muumuu (Space Mutiny). Tain Bodkin, still preaching (The Giant Spider Invasion). Katherine Victor, Batwoman herself without the nose mask but stealing one of Dolly Parton's wigs and not aging gracefully. Richard Banks no longer the Mexican Zorro Ratfink (The Wild World of Batwoman). And the big kahuna himself Steve Brodie (The Giant Spider Invasion AND The Wild World of Batwoman). Throw in John Carradine's floating head looking like Jeff Dunham's grumpy old man puppet Walter, Amazon women in leopard print bikinis, lots of hot air balloons in the opening credits, a 2,000 year old man getting what I think is blood transfusions to stay alive, zombies dressed like they're cat burglars, and the monster himself resurrecting...from a body of water inside a cave. As for the plot, I wish I could tell you. Not that I'm trying to not spoil things, I just can't remember what the heck this film was about. How sad is it that the only credible actor in the whole movie is Melvin the dog? Watch at your own peril.
mikey-242-435767 I read the reviews. I said to myself, "Well, this could not possibly be as bad as all that." Well, it is. It starts right away. The patterns on the balloons keep changing from shot to shot in the credits. And there are many of them talking on the radio. What happened to the other folks with radios? Did they not call for a rescue ship? Nobody knows... It never comes up in the movie.Then these four goofs come on shore and one is still holding a raft in his hand and it talking about having to build a raft. Why? At that point they just arrived and have not searched around the island and already have a fully inflated rubber raft.And they immediately ask "How will we get over these bluffs?" Why do they need to. Wait for the pickup from the people who are coming to get you. No mention of that. Seems like the opening credits and radio chatter is from a different movie.Well, it goes from there off onto several different plot threads. They intersect from time to time, minimally. And there is that laughing fool. He even laughs while he is drinking his moonshine. Quite a talent. And what is he laughing at so much? That spinning, pink ammo box is just too much! And the confusion of plots (snakes, tarantulas, machine guns, trident that turns women into vampires, a brain without a head running everything, John Carradine speaking gibberish) continues until, thankfully, this movie is done.My great thanks to the director for not making the movie ANY LONGER! And you won't believe the ending. I guess it is an ending. Or they just ran out of film. Not fulfilling at all.
Paul Andrews Where on Earth do I even start to try and attempt to write a review of Frankenstein island? It's not going to be easy but I'll try to explain the basic plot to begin with. We open with shots of hot air balloons, supposedly over the ocean somewhere, but we never see the ocean and balloons in the same shot together so we have to take their word for it. It seems their looking for a balloon that crashed in a tornado around this area, at this point I asked myself what is there to 'crash' a balloon into in the middle of the ocean? And why are they using balloons to search for them? Why not a helicopter which would make a lot more sense? Then again nothing in this film makes sense. Anyway, one of the balloonists says "the water, man! The ocean! Anyway you shake it, those poor devils either ended up on it, in it or under it!" This sort of inane dialogue that sounds like it was written by a five year old continues throughout the entire film. After that they presumably give up as their never seen or mentioned again. Then we get the opening credits, after which we are introduced to our main characters. Four men stumble onto a beach somewhere, carrying a perfectly good inflatable raft, this obviously how they made it to the island. Curtis (Tain Bodkin), Dino (Patrick O'Neil), Mark (Robert Christopher), Dr Paul Hadley (Robert Clarke) and Melvin their dog, for some unknown reason they decide to leave their life raft behind, which is a great idea considering their trapped on an island surrounded by the ocean, and enter some caves nearby. While walking along in the surprisingly well lit cave some strange device projects the image of Dr Frankenstein (John Carridine) momentarily, for absolutely no reason, you had better get used to things happening for no reason, as it happens a lot. They all exit the cave safely and are greeted to a barren landscape of trees, bushes and fields. The directors local wood then. As they approach some trees while talking, Curtis suddenly grabs his wrist and scream in pain. This is accompanied by weird electronic sounds. Scary. The sounds stop and Curtis is fine again. As 'explained' later in the film it was down to Curtis mentioning the name of a place, in fact it happens to anyone who commits this mortal sin. Then they notice that a woman dressed in a Leopard print bikini is tied horizontally between two trees, and is surrounded by plastic skulls on sticks. Not something you would expect to see everyday. It turns out that she is a member of a tribe of young beautiful primitive females who speak perfect English. Oh and their also half alien, this film is so insane its untrue! At the half alien/half primitive female's camp, just a few rocks with a fire in the middle, Dino looks on at a woman looking at herself in a mirror. Mark walks over to him and Dino says "thats the weirdest thing I've ever seen", when the film cut back its a different woman, this time she's holding a small snake. At this point I again asked myself another pressing question, why would someone describe looking at a woman admiring herself in a mirror and a woman holding a snake as the weirdest thing he's ever seen? When earlier in the day he had witnessed a half naked woman tied between two trees and surrounded by skulls? I think this film was made up as they went along. More barmy characters are introduced, Sheila Frankenstein (Katherine Victor) the great, great granddaughter of Dr Frankenstein, two old guys who run around for her, Sheila's husband Dr Von Helsing (George Mitchell), Clay Jason (Cameron Mitchell) who's supposedly been imprisoned on the island for seventeen years, and bunch of idiotic stupid looking zombie guards who wear blue jeans, black turtle neck sweaters silly black hate and over sized sunglasses, and a few even sport fake mustache's, you have to see them to believe how idiotic they look, and eventually the Frankenstein monster itself. I could go on forever about how bad this film is, the script makes no sense at all, about half way through the film the four start to discuss leaving the island and building a raft, yet at the start of the film they are clearly seen with a perfectly good rubber dinghy, and a sequence where about ten people hide behind one tree to escape the attention of a zombie guard. The Frankentein monsters rampage is depicted by it knocking over a table with some beakers on it, and just waving its arms about. The ending is awful too, but then what did you expect? The fight sequence here is laughable, the actors look more like their dancing with each other, check out how far the punches and kicks miss by! At one point for no reason, one of the zombie guards grows vampire fangs, obviously the sort you buy on Halloween from any good corner shop. One zombie guard also uses a small plastic devils trident, probably brought from the same shop as the fangs and plastic skulls. I could go on and on about how bad, idiotic, stupid, lame, boring, and poorly made this is but I think you get the idea. Its not all bad however, at one point Doc comes out with one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a film, while Sheila is showing our hero's her garden, Doc picks up a large vegetable and says "those are the most beautiful vegetables I've ever seen". Absolutely hilarious, as is the whole film, you really have to see it to believe it, and even then you might not. How Jerry Warren had the nerve to film this rubbish I'll never know. Not bad in a good kind of way, just plain bad.