9 Islands Schlockier Than Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island
3. Empire Of The Ants (1977)
Bert I. Gordon made his career with 1950s creature features about giant spiders, locusts and mutant men in nappies terrorizing the mid-west. In the 1970s, with Jaws and King Kong having done, er, sizable box-office business, he took another stab at the big bug genre. This one has Joan Collins as a bitchy developer trying to dupe investors into buying into her worthless island property. But radioactive waste washing up on the shore does more than devalue the beachfront. It supersizes the ant population -- and these insects don't just want to munch on the swinging 1970s types, they want to use the Queen's pheromones to enslave them at the old sugar factory!
2. The Wild Women Of Wongo (1958)
This is set 10,000 years ago when Mother Nature and Father Time conducted an experiment in which all the men on the island of Goona were made handsome while their women were made ugly. On the neighboring isle of Wonga, the reverse was made true. Our tale concerns the forbidden love between Goona's hunk Engor and Wonga's honey Oomo, and the various threats to their beautiful-people union posed by alligators, ape men and, of course, the hideous butt-ugly people of their or any world. Meant as a comedy, it's thoroughly stupid, but also strangely watchable and offers some crazy head-banging from the girls during their tripped-out dance to the Dragon God. That it ends up with the slinky folk canoodling while the monobrowed freaks are lumped together makes this a strangely accurate depiction of A-list celebrity mating habits. I also think it's not a bad concept for a reality-TV show.
1. The Ghastly Ones (1968)
Andy Milligan was a real island auteur -- the writer-director-producer-costumer made most of his cheap-and-nasty grindhouse flicks in his house on Staten Island in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Ghastly Ones is, like most of this misanthrope's work, technically awful but exerts the sort of deadly mesmerism as a rattlesnake on your path. Exploring his usual themes -- mother hatred, incest, murder and madness -- this has three sisters only able to inherit daddy's fortune if they can spend three days in "sexual harmony" with their spouses at the familial mansion, which has never known love. Cue a series of hate-filled revelations and murders that'd be gruesome if not for the sickly, out-of-focus "swirl cam" that became Milligan's trademark. Watch this, even on DVD, and you can almost smell the grime of 42nd Street in its hellish heyday.
Check out Michael Adams' pop-culture memoir Showgirls, Teen Wolves, And Astro Zombies (It! Books), which traces his obsessive year-long quest to find the worst movie ever made. It's but a click away!
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
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 🙂
I'm a realistic illustration of a everyday chick,I really like food and gentlemen and coziness. It is just that sometimes, the unending prattle of fashion has grown to become a shout with my head. I just can't underrate it's idiocies anylonger,I walk past a store that has for sale 6in heels and I am just angry,Banana Republic? Mad just as before, Selfridges and it is loathsome "I shop therefore I am" advertising campaigns, a manifesto for morons? Try not to even go there. I've had it with that tyrant fool tossing darts from every billboard and periodical and Tv screen.I wish to chuck a spear back.
Excellent! Ahmadinejad did us a favor! While we frantically delude ourselves into believing this guy (and the ones who applaud him) are fit to be thought of as good everyday people, he spits in our face to remind us that we all are (just as before) fooling our self.
Hungarian officials recalculate amount of harmful sludge avalanche, announcing it's more or less as much as Gulf oil spill, incredible!!!!!!!!!!
I'd been a Professor at the Terribly Corrupt U . s University of Iraq... Prior to the Neocons Terminated Me!!!!
I am just in awe that they can allow Margarito back after just a year suspension for what he did. This isn't the 1st time he's been accused of this, but it's the first time he has been caught. Luis Resto went to prison and got banned forever for what he did. Margarito basically did the same thing, but he got caught before he could get in the ring and almost/kill some one. This scumbag does this and then gets a title shot with the best P4P boxer on the earth, such a disgrace.
This is probably the top so far of the Narnia films! Rich in action and adventure, really humorous scenes where Eustace's attitude and twisted face provide many laughs, and spiritual symbolism that is so rich -- this film is a total success! I loved Reepicheep's courage and dignity, and the virtue in spite of struggle of the Pevensies. Aslan comes through in the lives of people he loves in his perfect timing. Jam-packed with special effects, this movie is visually gorgeous and will be an excellent film for families with tweens and teens! My teenage daughter loved it too -- we attended a special preview screening last week. I'm definitely going to recommend this film to all of the families I know, and I can't wait to see it again .
Lindsay Lohan's body is incredible but if I had the choice between her or Avril Lavigne, I think my choice would be the latter...
Dominique Strauss-Kahn... DSK of the IMF... can I say how great it is to hear about a banker in trouble and we don't have to bail him out LOL!