Leofwine_draca FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND is a terminally awful B-movie horror flick from director Jerry Warren, who had been working in the genre since the 1950s. The plot sees a group of cardboard characters crashing their hot-air balloon on a remote island, which they soon discover is inhabited by a descendant of Frankenstein who is carrying on his sinister experiments. This juvenile nonsense is PG rated and features all manner of plot weirdness, from cheesy zombies to laboratory scenes and over-ripe dialogue. Frankenstein's Monster makes a last-reel appearance which really isn't worth the wait. Cast-wise, the washed-up likes of Robert Clarke and Cameron Mitchell wonder what happened to their careers, while John Carradine is projected on to a wall. This film deserves note for featuring one of the dumbest lines of dialogue I can remember hearing in a movie: "I'm Sheila Frankenstein...actually, it's Von Helsing, but I don't prefer my married name".

Roddenhyzer Alright, "Frankenstein Island". Whatever image this title may conjure up in your mind, just forget it, because the actual goings-on in this astonishingly bizarre sci-fi horror oddity are guaranteed to thoroughly rape your expectations. In fact, there's very little that *isn't* going on in this one. You get a touch of ancient aliens, a spoonful of wild Amazons, a taste of science gone wrong in the pursuit of immortality, some channeling, occultism, semi-vampirism, zombies, a pickled corpse, mind control, martial arts and, of course, Frankenstein's monster is also waddling around somewhere in there. The movie is so chock-full of half-baked ideas and random nonsense, it makes you wonder whether the script was originally written on paper, or a padded wall.It starts out harmless enough: Four balloonists are washed ashore a mysterious island after having crashed their balloon into the ocean during some sort of balloon-related world record attempt. Upon exploring their surroundings, the men encounter a rather welcoming tribe of friendly, albeit vaguely occult Amazon women in traditional bikini outfits. They all enjoy a little feast and a tribal dance party, but the fun ends the next day, when another, less friendly group of inhabitants makes their presence known, namely a handful of stranded shipwreck survivors, who have been on the island for quite some time. They proceed to introduce our protagonists to none other than doctor Frankenstein's great-great-granddaughter, who, too, happens to have a cozy summer domicile plus laboratory on this apparently very popular island, and her near-comatose husband, who possesses the remarkable ability to channel the ghost of the actual, deceased Dr. Frankenstein. As you might imagine, this is where things get a little weird.Now, the main problem I had with this movie was its pointlessly complicated and at times quite hard to follow storyline. I don't think it was necessary to inflate this simple premise of a ruthless scientist doing strange experiments on a remote island with quite so much random fluff. As I mentioned above, there are enough half-developed ideas in this to fill three movies, and they're all haphazardly dumped on the main story without any sense of cohesion. It doesn't help that the characters, especially the bad guys, are pretty inconsistent when it comes to their behavior.All in all, if you're up for a legitimate Frankenstein sequel, go with something like "Son", "House", "Ghost", or "Curse of Frankenstein", and steer clear of this one. However, if you're seeking out something with a "so bad, it's good" appeal, "Frankenstein Island" is definitely not a bad choice. It's all a huge, spectacular mess that'll make your brain beg for death, but at least it's not boring.

lemon_magic I've only seen one other Jerry Warren film (to my knowledge), "The Wild World Of Batwoman", but I would easily put him up there with Ray Dennis Steckler ("The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies?!!") as one of the top five people in Western Civilization who should never be allowed near a camera again. And I hope that at some point the poor guy who made "Robot Monster" got a chance to see this - it would have cheered him up immensely to see a film that made "RM" look like Francis Ford Coppola. What an amazing mess. Watching it is like watching 9th graders (trapped in the bodies of adults) trying to pretend they are acting out a Boris Karloff movie. The only good thing you can say for it is that the movie doesn't seem to take itself seriously - it's just trying to have a swinging good time and to entertain the audience.Watch it for the sheer novelty value only. Jerry Warren: Your guarantee of movie incoherence.

humanresistor Briefly speaking, nothing in this movie makes any sense at all, either on the level of overall plot or of individual scenes or even lines. This would have to be one of the most relentlessly stupid movies ever made. As soon as it looks like something is remotely intelligible, the actors and director seem to do their utmost to bring in yet another non sequitur.The dialogue seems to have been written by someone who's never actually heard a conversation between people before, and acted by people who've never participated in one.However, it's extremely amusing. This is an extraordinarily bad movie, but that's not because it's boring. The pink lunchbox, the contact lenses with white-out on them, the rubber skulls, the guy who keeps laughing constantly for no reason, the suburban living room in the middle of the deserted island, the power that attacks your arm when you "mix the particular place, not here but on the outside" (that is, say the name of a city)... champagne cinema.You could do much worse than track a copy down - but beware - some video copies have the goofiest scenes edited out!