Celia and Christopher have arrived in Mykonos on holidays. One a brit and one a yank. Her cute and him square jawed. The film they're in is called Island Of Death so no doubt a big durty serial killer will be chasing them all over the place with a scythe or a pitchfork soon enough. They're walking around, introducing themselves, getting the lay of the land. They seem decent, horror movie shorthand for killer fodder. Ah look they are having a smooch in the telephone box. He's phoning his mam. Oh christ now they're riding. They want his mam to hear. Hmmmm that's odd. I know people were more sexually liberated back then but that's a bit much. BTW, she's his sister.
3 minutes later.
Oh jesus no, now he's shagging a goat.
They're on the run from England and Christopher has decided this Greek cesspit needs to be cleaned up. He's a master of hypocrisy. An incestuous rapist who sees homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and drug abuse as beyond the pale. In his eyes these people must die and he's going to be the one to kill them. Celia's no innocent along for the ride though, as she lures in horny islanders to be crucified and even kills a couple herself. The film wants us to feel bad for her and every now and then she expresses remorse for about 10 seconds before sitting back smiling as her lover decapitates someone with a bulldozer or sets fire to a woman's face with a candle and a can of aerosol spray. In her quieter moments she's plagued with nighttime visions of a strange man who'll be the end of them both. Will anything come of these dreams or are they just another facet of a broken mind?
That, thankfully faked, scene of bestiality mentioned above is one of the many, many reasons Island Of Death ended up being prosecuted for obscenity back in the early days of the 1980's. It's first release (amazingly a cinema release in 1976) under the title A Craving For Lust was shorn of 13 minutes. In 1982 it hit the streets on VHS and Betamax fully uncut and it was this version in all it's manky glory that caught the eye of the BBFC and in the ensuing video nasty hoopla it ended up being banned for two decades. The departure of BBFC kingpin James Ferman in 1999 meant film censorship eased up massively and in this new liberal era a lot of the nasties managed to finally get released uncut but Island Of Death wasn't one of them. It hit DVD with 4 minutes and 9 seconds removed from it's running time, a testament to just how depraved it is. Finally in 2010 the powers that be decided it had lost it's ability to shock and it finally got an uncut release.
It's a strange one and it's definitely still shocking in places. For a film that revels in it's own vileness it's actually quite beautiful looking. A love letter to the island of Mykonos that no doubt hugely pissed off the Greece tourist board. It's definitely one of the better made nasties, full of decent camerawork, above par acting and it's all clearly shot on location. If you removed the extreme amounts of sex, violence and sexual violence you'd have perfectly decent little thriller. But it's those very elements that ensured the film's infamy. Director Niko Mastorakis freely admitted that he set out to shock audiences because he knew shock = box office gold. After a viewing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and reading about the massive profits it was raking in he decided he wanted a share so he set out to appall. It worked. Too well. The film was banned in numerous countries around the world. You could get away with a lot in 1976 but this was was just too over the top. Urolagnia, numerous rape scenes, some horrible homophobia and misogyny, excruciating violence against men and women and animals. There's even a scene where a black detective is lynched, a moment you feel was thrown in for maximum outrage. Then the ending rocks up. Mastorakis wanted it to be poetic but it's just desperately tasteless. Sexual violence is used as a weapon against both our leads, except one of them ends up enjoying it. It's an ending that you'll watch through gritted teeth while scarely believing it exists at all.
Did it deserve to be on the nasties list? Oh yeah, if the list didn't exist they'd have made one just for this film.
Would I recommend it? Uff. Solid production values, decent acting and some beautiful imagery aside it's not a film I'd ever tell people to watch. It just leaves a genuinely bad taste in the mouth.
Next up - Wes Craven's The Last House On The Left. A film that makes A Nightmare On Elm Street look like an episode of Peppa Pig,
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