Mystery on Monster Island

source: Mystery on Monster Island

Eager young Jeff Morgan (likable Ian Sera) desperately craves adventure and excitement; he finds more than he bargained for when he and several friends find themselves shipwrecked on a mysterious uncharted island populated by dangerous prehistoric monsters, a lethal tribe of savage cannibals, and a pernicious gang of gold-seeking bandits. Boy, does this hysterically horrible honey possess all the so-utterly-wrong-they're-paradoxically-right lousy stuff to size up as an entertainingly awful clunker: hilariously horrendous (far from) special effects (giant plastic dinosaurs, guys in cheesy rubbery suits, Tonka Toy miniatures, that sort of rinky-dink nonsense), an irritatingly bouncy cutesy-poo score, stop'n'go erratic pacing, ill-advised attempts at silly humor, clumsy (mis)direction by notorious Spanish schlockmeister supreme Juan Piquer Simon (who also co-wrote the hopelessly inane script), zero tension or momentum, a meandering narrative, and a lame cheat of a surprise twist ending. The acting is decidedly variable as well: Terence Stamp sneers it up nicely as the evil Taskinar, David Hatton serves up a fat'n'juicy slice of obnoxiously overripe ham as the fussy, whiny, cowardly Professor Thomas Artelect, Gasphar Ipua likewise contributes an overly broad turn as friendly local Carefinatu, and Peter Cushing manages to keep his dignity as distinguished millionaire William T. Kolderup. Moreover, the gorgeous Blanca Estrada looks positively ravishing as sultry French babe Dominique Blanchard, the lovely Ana Obregon provides some charm as Jeff's sweet fiancé Meg Hollaney, and Paul Naschy has a regrettably small part as the greedy Flynt. An absolute cruddy hoot.

OK, I watched 20'000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, and CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERSEA CITY, and they were good. But this one is pretty poor. Yet it was kind of silly, and a little cartoonish. The professor gets hit, and you here a "Buh-oooiii-iiinnnggg" kind of noise (hey I heard that noise in SESAME STREET). The monsters in this film are pretty bad and lame. You see beasts that look like a combination between the gill man and a baboon. A big monster that looks like a combination between an allosaurus and a gorilla (how did they do that, a man in a suit, a robot)? Weird. Glops of sea weed that come to life. It looks like a bunch of SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS rejects. And caterpillers that blow steam. I thought this was a "creatures from lost worlds" kind of fantasy, but at the end, everything was joke island. The music in certain scenes like the chase scenes with the thieves sounded like cartoon music of the early 80's. The set where the hero and company were chased in a cave resembles the cave from the 1960 remake of THE LOST WORLD. Since the movie was called JULES VERNE'S MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND, how come you see beautiful birds or harmless monkeys. I was expecting some prehistoric life forms. As Blockbuster Video Movie Guide says, "stick to MYSTERIOUS ISLAND". This film (like KING KONG ESCAPES) is not available on video, but you can tape it on the Sci-Fi channel.

I just don´t understand what´s wrong with this movie.. I say this due to the comments I´ve read about it. It´s most enjoyable, the great and unknown David Hatton (the professor) is without a doubt the real star of the movie... Great photography, fine performances from the entire cast including the guest stars Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp make this movie most amusing and a must to see from time to time. Perhaps it´s a movie for children, I don´t know. But that´s precisely why I like it so much. Bearing in mind the movies that Hollywood and even Europe offer at present, I really think that the dose of ingenuity this movie releases is just unpayable. I adore it.

And todays new word is "D R O S S." dross |drôs; dräs| noun something regarded as worthless; rubbish : there are bargains if you have the patience to sift through the dross. • foreign matter, dregs, or mineral waste, in particular scum formed on the surface of molten metal. There is no mystery on mystery island. The 'monsters" are as scary as inflatables seen in a cheesy parade. Acting is subpar and the script, below what you'd run across in student projects. Go away. Save the 90 minutes for something worthwhile.........like a root canal.

Good Samaritan Peter Cushing pays $5 million for an island during an auction and hereby beats mean bastard Terence Stamp who knows for a fact there's a gold treasure buried somewhere. Cushing sends his nephew to the island to explore, accompanied by a clumsy professor as some sort of comic relief, but things already start to get awry from the ocean journey. One night the nephew finds the crew dead and the deck infested with cheesy seaweed monsters inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The ship explodes but the boy and his nutty professor wash ashore the island where they're welcomed by plenty of other abnormalities. There are dinosaurs, seaweed zombies, Arabs with sunglasses, gas-spurting caterpillars and a beautiful French female castaway. I got "lured" into watching "Mystery on Monster Island" because of the famous names (Cushing and Stamp in one movie!?!) in the cast and crew (Juan Piquer Simon made my personal favorites "Supersonic Man", "Pieces" and "Slugs") and also simply because it sounds awesome and purely nostalgic. In reality, however, this is a very misleading family/comedy/adventure movie instead of a mystery thriller. I can easily stand a little bit of comedy, but I really wasn't prepared for an uptight professor teaching table manners to a chimpanzee and diction to aboriginals. Another reason why you can tell this movie is family-friendly: the nephew remains faithful to his fiancée back home, even though the gorgeous French chick literally throws herself at him. I think it's highly unlikely any man will refuse (or able to resist) such an offer in this particular situation. "Mystery on Monster Island" is somewhat reminiscent to the Sinbad movies; expect they're a lot more infantile. The special effects are really back-to-basic, with giant plastic dinosaurs and postcard images of waterfalls and cave entrances and even a little bit of exotic wildlife. The aboriginals set up a wooden fort faster than MacGyver and The A-Team combined and that where there's not a hardware store in sight. Where do they get their equipment? Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp perhaps receive top billing but naturally they only appear briefly in the film. Altogether not even five minutes, I estimate. There's another famous horror legend in the cast, namely Paul Naschy, but his character already dies within the first three minutes of the film. Absolute nobodies play the real main characters of the story. It's a total rip-off however you look at it. Avoid

Unfortunately, this one constituted another gaffe within my ongoing Halloween challenge since it's not really a horror film despite title, director (he'd later make the gory PIECES [1983]) and presence of genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy! In fact, it's a typical Jules Verne adventure (based on his much-filmed "Mysterious Island") which proves surprisingly palatable – thanks also to a lively score – though unbalanced by comedy relief from the youthful hero's bumbling/cowardly sidekick, a Professor of Elocution whose name is constantly mispronounced ("T. Artelet not tartlet!"). Cushing is the protagonist's rich uncle who has purchased an island, to which the boy is sent and where he meets a variety of dangers (pirates, cannibals, monsters) – eventually, there's a twist with respect to most of these, which thankfully explains the sheer poverty of the creatures on display! On the other hand, Naschy has a very small role at the start as a man who has struck gold – which is then coveted by his associates. The latter include Terence Stamp who, for obvious reasons, was Cushing's chief rival for the acquisition of the island; later on, he turns up on it (ludicrously shrouded from top to bottom complete with anachronistic goggles!) with his bandit horde to take the gold by force – to this end, he even plants a female 'shipwreck victim' to lure the hero into divulging the loot's whereabouts. Coupled with the far better GORILLA AT LARGE (1954; see above) on Fox's-by-way-of-MGM "Midnite Movies" banner, it offers the film both in English and Spanish. At first, always the stickler for a film's native country being its original language, I started watching the film in Spanish but when a narrator began translating the credits into Spanish and the English subtitles proved to be of the descriptive "hard of hearing" variety, I soon gave up my puritan pretensions and watched it with the more 'user friendly' English soundtrack on. At least, one does get to hear Cushing and Stamp reciting their own lines this way...

I decided to watch this movie, simply for the presence of Peter Cushing & Terrance Stamp. I ignored the very low rating on IMDb, and decided to go ahead with watching this one. Serves me right! This movie was a complete waste of time and one of the worst movies I have ever seen, period. The island is filled with prehistoric monsters alright, but they are laughably bad; one is reminiscent from The Creature of The Black Lagoon, and we also get some silly looking people that are covered in seaweed and other stuff from the sea. It takes place in the islands of Spain, so the cinematography is certainly beautiful, but even that gets old after a while. It's also filled with this annoyingly happy music, which is constant throughout the film. I understand that this is partially a comedy, but it wasn't needed in my opinion. Peter Cushing's role is very limited, almost to a glorified cameo. It's a thankless role which I'm assuming was for a much needed paycheck. Terrance Stamp doesn't have much screen time either. I'm sure it's a role he has quickly put out of his mind. Ian Sera makes for a weak hero in Jeff. David Hatton grated my nerves as Thomas, and I couldn't stand his shrilled voice or his whiny performance. He's meant to be the comedic relief, but he's terribly unfunny. What was the point of that twist ending? The movie was so laborious, did they think we would give a damn? I don't know what they were thinking when this was green-lit, but this was one of the worst 90 minutes or so I've ever spent in my life Final Thoughts: You want the headache that comes with this? Be my guest. I usually am rebellious when it comes to such low ratings, but in this case it is richly deserved. You won't see many films that are worse than this. Avoid it like the plague DUD

I give this trainwreck a "7" just because the group I watched it with had such a good time HOWLING with laughter at how horrible it all was - everything is wrong - the direction, the acting, the "special" effects, etc. Two vets like Stamp and Cushing take the money and run - they are barely in it - the two male leads are like oil and water - one guy is dead eyed and no energy and the other David Hatton overacts so much you are stunned at the hammy performance. He must have known how bad the thing was so he decided to give a 1000% to make up for the lame script and bad effects - he acts with his eyes, he acts with his eyebrows, he acts with his MOUSTACHE - he plays the nervous, sniveling kind of sissy character that was very popular in comedies from 1930's and 1940's (Edward Everret Horton usually played them) but the thing is.....THIS MOVIE IS MADE IN THE 1980's!!!! We laughed so hard when the "dinosaur" monster finally showed up - it is so bad, so not real, so not scary that we saluted the filmmaker for even yelling "Action" - wow - is it lame and then the scene where they encounter giant caterpillars is also unintentionally hilarious. So for fans of Grade Z cheese, pull up a chair and laugh - for those looking for a good old fashioned Jules Verne adventure - you are out of luck,.

You have got to be kidding me. I saw this on sky TV and this is not a comedy, just a low budget crap about tribes and weird creatures. The sea creature was a toy because i can tell from looking at it. The caterpillar is some train like robot. The dinosaurs are stuffed animals man. The Dino's didn't even walk proply, man. I couldn't even tell it was a dinosaur. The sea creature could have been better but he just looks like a man in a werewolf costume. The story is boring and the tribes are really weird. Don't watch this, this is just about people trapped in the island from stuffed animals and a tribe. I give it a 1 out of 10. Not funny. NOT CREATIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!