Savage Island (1985)

Fantastic!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I have to make a confession: though I am a big fan of B movies, I have never found the "women in prison" B movie genre all that appealing. Despite what the genre promises, I have only found to date one such film to be worth my time ("Fugitive Girls", if you must know.) As you've probably guessed, I didn't care much for "Savage Island". For the most part, it's a really dull and dreary movie, with long sections where little to no plot is being executed. It's also a cheap exercise, with minimum production values, sometimes even less than that. The movie does boast a decent amount of nudity, often being the full frontal kind, but other attempts at exploitation - action, sex, etc. - pretty much fall completely flat. Oh, and if you are a Linda Blair fan, be warned that her appearance consists of just a few minutes of the total running time, so she doesn't get to do much. How anyone thought this deserved a DVD release, I cannot say.

Patchwork women in prison film was made from combining two Euro shockers with some new unrelated footage. The new footage has Linda Blair (who shoots security guard Penn Jillette in an blink and you'll miss it role) going to confront the man who runs a mine in the jungles of South America where women are abused and forced to dig for gems. Blair says she was one of the girls in the camp and once we get the confrontation the film flashes back to a group of women going to the island and being abused.This is an okay film with some stand out moments. Its very much of its type with all sorts of abuse heaped upon women who eventually revolt and then make a made dash into the jungle, however there are a few moments where the film creates some genuine tension and creepiness that lift it a bit above the typical voyeuristic level that these films normally operate on. Of course its not high enough to make this something you'd want to watch with your mom (unless she liked these sort of films) but if you're in a mood for this sort of thing you could do worse.

I have this obscure movie on VHS and the cover features Linda Blair in a revealing outfit, holding a machine gun. In the actual movie, she does hold (and fire) a machine gun, BUT: A) Her outfit is a formal dress under a fur coat, B) Her part is a 5-minute cameo (plus a few lines of narration). The rest of "Savage Island" consists of copied-and-pasted footage from TWO Italian/Spanish Women-In-Prison films, one of which I've seen ("Escape from Hell") and one I haven't ("Orinoco - Prison of Sex"). The result is, as you might expect, a complete mess. There is no continuity between the scenes, sometimes even between the shots. 2 women start fighting dressed, in the next shot they are naked (because a lesbian scene in-between has been omitted). In one shot it is night, in the next shot it is day. In one shot the prisoners are in a circle, in the next shot they have formed lines. There are TWO different prison wardens, and the SAME female guard gets killed twice. It's all quite laughable and shameless. Rating: 0 out of 4 stars, pushed up to 0.5 because Linda Blair with a machine gun is sexy.

Escape From Hell??? Prison Of Sex??? Which is it??? This movie su-u-u-u-u-u-u-cked! Take Linda Blair, put her in furs, have her cap a security guy, (A slumming Penn Jillete.) then put her face to face with a sleazy diamond merchant/slave farm owner. It must have sounded cool at one point.Both of the early films that were ripped off, and had the Blair footage wrapped around, seemed like passable entertainment. But this horrid mess must have been made as a joke.No coherence. Characters switching on and off at will. Seemingly endless shots of chicks in jungle gear sweating and running before dying. That does get boring when done wrong. And this was WRONG.And who/where was that sneering voice coming from? (" Come on! You gotta WOOORRRKKK!!!!") The late Leon Askin (Gen. Burkhalter in "Hogan's Heroes.") was the lone watchable one. His brief scenes seemed like the only serious ones.Crap!