Rated AAARRRRRR~: The Island (1980)

The Island (1980)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Michael Caine, David Warner and Angela Punch McGregor

I never am too fond of pirates in general despite being a fan of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy (The rest of the franchise doesn't exist. Period), but seeing how director Michael Ritchie managed to fuse slasher film elements with an ocean adventure film, color me impressed and curious!

Reporter Blair Maynard is an investigative journalist who 's looking into a case involving a series of disappearing yachts near the Caribbean seas. His work got harder when he gets tied into looking after his son, Justin, after settling a divorce, forcing him to do the improbable decision to tag the boy along, double crossing his son into believing that they're going to Disneyland.

After a near death experience from an exploding cargo plane leaves them stranded in a small island, their relationship strains further away. To make up with the lies, Blair takes Justin fishing in the middle of the sea wherein they spot a girl floating on a life-vest. But upon helping her, they make a horrifying discovery that this is a trap set by the unlikeliest foes: Pirates!

After managing to kill one of the sea-dog hoodlums, both Maynard and Justin are taken alive to the pirates' secret island, where Maynard's forced to be the sex slave of the late pirate's lover (trust me, it's tamer than it sounds), and Justin gets trained to be the prodigy for their leader, whose favor begins to brainwash the boy more and more each day.

The Island (1980), based on the novel by Peter "JAWS" Benchley (who also wrote the screenplay), is an oddball of a hybrid that delivers a monstrous bodycount and the weirdest choice of cinematic monster: a closer and more terrifying visage of pirates, made up of heartless murderers, remorseless thieves and brainwashed slaves, still possessing some out-dated mentality that somehow clashes quite well with the new world.

The film pulls out the unbelievable right before our very eyes, marking this film's territory into cheese cinema; while the first third takes place in the titular island, showing what the pirates do if they're not raiding ships or cutting throats such as harvesting food, teaching their (kidnapped) youths how to kill and even have bonfire nights, the second act is where things got a little cheesier. For one, we get treated with a hilarious scene where, after their yacht got raided, a teenager stands up to the crowd of Long John Silvers and starts doing some Karate moves. As laughable as it is, the fight was impressive enough to knock down a few of the cronies. Of course, the pirates still got the last laugh, gutting him with a sword.

The last part of the film was where it gets really implausible, with the pirates getting hold of a Navy ship and managing to kill off every single navy men inside with little or almost no effort (there goes the country's taxes), only to meet a gun-totting demise at the hands of Blair, which gave this particular scene a massive kill count in a single serving (and earning my respect), leading to a mano-a-mano stalk-and-kill showdown between our reporter, his brainwashed-or-not Justin and John David Nau (David Warner), the leader of the pirates.

Above all the silliness, the film is still entertaining in a unique way; dabbling the old childhood interest of pirates while giving a fresh new take on the slasher genre, The Island (1980) can be an underrated 'bad film" that gave brainless sensitivities a good light in a manner of a good old-fashioned ocean adventure. The sets and make-up are beautiful (with a mangrove village to add and the pirates all looked great!), some good tension is at play (especially the first murders), great water/ boating scenes, countless raids, and funny as it is, some passable acting from both Michael Caine and Frank Middlemass as Windsor, the anthropologist who's hiding and teaching the clan out of fascination.

Sadly, I can't say the same for some of the direction such as the brainwashing of Justin, which felt very rushed as if it occurred in a single day. (But it looked like they were there for weeks) There's also some badly lit scenes (Maynard's first attempt to escape) and, apart from the brutal opening murder and the superb machine gun kill, the murders can be a bit repetitive, albeit rich in its own unique charms.

One can actually overlook these tiny flaws easily if they're willing. It's far from perfection but as an oddball cheese gem, The Island (1980) is also far from horrible (at least for us followers of the cheddar! ) and to search for this rare gem is like a treasure hunt of the same nature: difficult and strenuous, but its all worth it upon finding!

Bodycount:
1 male had his head split with an axe
1 male had his gut slashed open with an axe
1 male had his head hacked with an axe
2 males killed offscreen
1 male hacked with a machete offscreen
1 female gets a throat cut with a machete
1 male and 1 female missing, presumed killed
1 male shot dead
1 male knifed to death
1 male shot with a rifle
1 male stabbed with a sword
1 male killed offscreen
1 female shot
3 males shot offscreen
1 male shot on the head
1 male shot on the chest with a crossbow
1 male had his neck cut with a knife
1 male stabbed on the neck with a knife
1 male stabbed on the gut with a machete
1 male axed on the back
1 male gets a throat cut
1 male slaughtered offscreen
1 male knifed on the back
5 males shot with an automatic rifle
1 male stabbed on the gut with a knife
1 male shot on the back
A number of males got killed by an exploding home-made bomb
1 male shot
1 male garroted
3 males shot dead with an automatic rifle
1 male shot with a machine gun
2 males shot with a machine gun
3 males got caught in exploding home-made bomb
1 male stabbed on the gut with a knife
A number of individuals killed during a Navy Seal ambush
A number of males got shot down with a Dauntless' .50 caliber machine gun
1 boy accidentally shot on the head
1 male shot on the chest with a flare gun
Total: 48+