9 Islands Schlockier Than Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island
As you read this, audiences are going to be of, um, two minds about Shutter Island. Is Martin Scorsese's thriller a rollicking example of an A-list filmmaker having fun with B-movie conventions? Or is it a bloated waste of time and talent that hinges on a switcheroo we could see coming back when Engor met Oomo? Either way, there's no doubt that you can do a lot worse with island-set schlock. I know, I've visited those grim shores -- read on for a guided tour.
9. The Island (2005)
It's odd that Michael Bay's film is about escaping to The Island. That's because the boffin-facility we begin in is a clean, wholly artificial and super-stylized space -- populated by cloned hotties like Ewan Macgregor and Scarlett Johannson, and dotted with sexy product placements for Apple, Puma, Xbox and Speedo -- seems like the auteur's idea of heaven. But keeping the action confined to this serene pleasure dome would have robbed Bay of the chance to stage the CGI-and-testosterone-fueled race-and-chase that makes up the film's second half. Even compared with Pearl Harbor, this came off poorly, but it now shines pretty brightly beside the cinematic black hole that was Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Fittingly enough, given the subject matter, The Island was recycled without credit from 1979 movie The Clonus Horror, a little cinematic cloning that in 2007 cost DreamWorks a settlement reportedly worth seven figures.
8. Frankenstein Island (1981)
For his last film, Z-grade auteur Jerry Warren simply recycled themes and cast members he'd used in previous masterworks such as The Incredible Petrified World (explorers chasing a world record), Teenage Zombies (an army of mind-slaves controlled by actress Katherine Victor) and Creature Of The Walking Dead (mad scientist blood experiments). The film -- about hot-air ballooning hunks washed up on an island populated by primitive babes, a zombie army and a couple of mad scientists -- is a piece of schlock to rival the likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space for entertaining incoherence. See John Carradine as a disembodied ghost head as he rants about The Golden Thread! Swoon as sexy alien-hybrid cave women smoke skull bongs! Thrill to the sight of giant vegetables! Recoil at wrestling zombies dressed like the Unabomber! To be fair, Lost doesn't make any more sense -- and takes 100 times as long to wade through. This awaits rediscovery as an object of midnight cult veneration.
7. Australia (2008)
As a citizen of Down Under, I can say with true-blue, dinky-di bloody confidence that while we Aussies have a robust sense of humor about ourselves, we weren't especially taken with a) Baz Luhrmann directing this; b) him giving his pastiche of classic Hollywood the unassuming title of Australia; and, c) using as a centerpiece for his melodrama the WWII surprise attack that's our equivalent of Pearl Harbor. It'd be like, say, Garry Marshall making a movie about 9/11 and calling it America. Baz's big-budget spectacular pretty much lived down to our expectations. The catch-all camp-kitsch aesthetic was mildly amusing when sending up Hugh Jackman's studliness and Nicole Kidman's prim British marm but, to use a bit of Aussie slang, Baz's approach went down like a fart in mass when applied to "magical" Aborigines or when it reduced the tragic bombing of Darwin to little more than a backdrop to our lovers' reconciliation.
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I love the idea that Michael Bay had to pay out to "The Clonus Horror", the settlement had to eclipse the original take on release. Hard to argue this list too much, though i might have shoehorned "6 Days, 7 Nights", or the remake of "The Island of Dr. Moreau" into the list.
They're not trying to "escape" from The Island. They're trying to escape from Merrick's facility to a place they're told is called The Island. It does not actually exist.
Also, Dreamworks was responsible for the creation of The Island and Dreamworks was the one who paid out the settlement, not Bay. He just directed it.
A Rose - you're right, and I've amended the story. I blame Transformers 2 for eroding giant chunks of my memory. Thanks for reading and commenting.
And Mr Martini Shark, definito on Dr Moreau. Just seemed so much of a given I wanted to devote its space to something more/less deserving.
and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093286/
Wow, that dude did indeed bust out with some good films??
Jerry
http://www.privacy-tools.de.tc
How is this a "B-movie convention"? It's based on a Dennis Lehane novel and Scorsese is directing it. "Author" Michael Adams can start using such phrases when he writes a novel half as good as Lehane or directs a movie half as good as Scorsese. Until then, STFU.
You left off Dinosaur Island.
An army captain is flying three misfit deserters home for a court martial when the plane has engine trouble and they must land on an uncharted island. There they find a primitive society of cave women who routinely sacrifice virgins to appease The Great One, the top dog dinosaur on the the island. Mistaken for gods, the men must destroy The Great One or face death, but meanwhile they fall in love.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109627/
Copy that, Michael. Between Brando's grand entrance and that midget on the piano I still have no idea what was going on, but it looked like Kilmer had no idea himself. Cherished cinema that.
Here's Dennis Lehane on what he set out to do with Shutter Island:
"So I was riffing off that in terms of the gothic, and then in terms of the pulp was where I went into my ‘50s B-movies, like Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor; and arguably one of my five favorite movies of all time, The Manchurian Candidate. Not the book – I’m not gonna be a literary snob on that one. I’ve never read the book. I’m just a fanatic about Frankenheimer’s film. And Anthony Shaffer’s The Wicker Man. Not the horrendous remake, but the original from 1973."
Fantastic article! I really couldn't agree more. I had quite a few issues with "Shutter Island" - primarily Scorsese's attempt to turn very predictable entertainment into some gothic film-noir. But anyway...Nice job 🙂
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