Tanya's Island (1980)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Simply A Masterpiece

Nice effects though.

D.D. Winters (a.k.a. 'Vanity') was highly nude from time to time in this odd little film. There were two other actors, one playing her abusive boyfriend and the other is a kind, sensitive emotionally available guy in a gorilla suit. The carachter was supposed to be an actual gorilla, but the cheap production values kill any suspension of disbelief. Tanya is stranded on the island with her thuggish boyfriend, but the gorilla has special qualities that win her heart and drag the body into near-bestiality.The last performance of Mae West was as a guest on the Mr. Ed show. She used her patented come-ons to the talking horse, plying him with seductive patter. That too, was odd. That episode and this film would make a fun double feature for a very select audience.

Tanya and her (surely old enough to be her father) lover Lobo live a free life on a tropical island,until Tanya meets an ape like creature Blue (which has a great for its day creature make up,from fx guru Rick Baker surely based on Jack Palances features).All is fine until Lobo gets jealous of his woman spending so much time with the beast,He captures it.Only for Tanya to release it in disgust.Leaving Lobo ("No Damned Animal Can Beat Me") to protect his camp site and partner from the angry beast.The plot comes across like Beauty and Beast crossed with the Blue Lagoon,and contains a few sex scenes which could push it into the realm of adult cinema.My fave part is seeing Lobo at the camp turn more beast like while Blue becomes human like.The ending for me is the films flaw,having the beast rape Tanya with a purely crude looking blue tint effect on the picture.I'm sure fans of traditional make-up FX will enjoy this most and maybe the beast rape will entertain exploitation fans enough to please them.I gave this one a [6 out of 10] sure it has its flaws but entertaining all the same.

Although I do not monitor which old films are scheduled to be re-released as DVD's, I occasionally see references to this, and I am often surprised at the titles that have been chosen. Many are films which I would not expect to succeed as a newly released DVD, whilst other titles contemporary with them which I would expect to be much more successful remain ignored. A case in point is Tanya's Island - I had heard a report that this was scheduled for release as a DVD early in 2005, but from my recollections of the film I thought this must have been a mistake. However a recent enquiry at one of our local stores has elicited the information that a DVD of this film is indeed expected to be in stock by the end of this month. This means that many people who see it on the shelves will consult IMDb to help them decide whether or not they want to buy a copy. My advice would be not to do so, at least until it has reached the video rental stores so they can preview it. As a film it had a number of interesting themes which held my attention during first viewing twenty years ago, but looking back on it afterwards I felt that these were not handled in any depth and were treated in a rather amateur fashion. The story is of a young girl who feels she has been mistreated by her artist boyfriend and experiences a romantic dream or reverie in which he, she and an ape are living on a very idealised island. The ape and the boyfriend compete for her attention in an extremely school-boyish manner which is comic rather than serious, but the point of the film is the psychological undertones when the man shows increasingly brutish characteristics whilst the brute begins to develop human ones. Whether one can learn anything important about female expectations, or subconscious male drives and urges, from this film would need to be addressed by someone more qualified than myself; however I would only recommend its purchase to somebody who has a serious academic interest in psychology, others may find it interesting to watch but no more.

A strange film in content and delivery. Tanya who is dangerously attached to her abusive artist boyfriend, Lobo, has an extended dream, in which she and her belligerent beau live on a deserted island paradise (cue gratuitous nudity over the opening credits). Tanya befriends an ape, Lobo gets jealous, and the trio fight in a manner which comes close to slapstick. The comic violence combines with sexual symbolism to create an unnerving mix. Perhaps the weakness of the film is Tanya herself, who provides a feast for the eyes, but leaves the mind a bit empty. She seems to spend the whole film both confused and amused by the whole situation. If the film is about Tanya's sexual naievity, then this theme is not developed sufficiently. For its weaknesses, this film is certainly a unique and interesting creation, worth seeing