Island Of Death – Nico Mastorakis (Arrow)

Let’s face it of the infamous 39 prosecuted ‘video nasties’ there was some awful dreck out there that although bloody, by today’s standards you could hardly call them nasty. Looking at them the likes of Axe, Forest Of Fear, The Werewolf And The Yeti, Night Of The Bloody Apes, Devil Hunter, Snuff and Night Of The Demon hardly had any right to be included on the list. Some were justified and the bulk of the Cannibal and Naziploitation films were certainly in very bad taste. Others included such as Fight For Your Life were definitely contentious too whether it is looked on as exploitation or an anti-racist allegory and I Spit On Your Grave, House On The Edge Of The Park and Cannibal Ferox are still incredibly hard hitting and problematic censor wise even today. Of those that came under my personal “this one is never going to get an uncut release” list Island Of Death directed by Grecian Nico Mastorakis in 1976 was one that was particularly high up and indeed when the incorrigible Vipco went and submitted it the resulting release was shorn of a spectacular 4 minutes running time. I was not in the slightest surprised by this.

I first viewed Island Of Death, after reading about it extensively, on a bootleg video tape procured at a certain movie fair a long time ago. Movie fairs were a great source of picking films like this up as long as you got there before the men from customs and excise who had the habit of turning up and seizing much of the good stuff and carting the films off in massive see through plastic bags. When I finally got to see it, well the scenes that I had read so much about certainly caused my jaw to hit the floor with a big clunk. Perverse, sleazy, sick and downright filthy are all words that could be used comfortably to describe it; this film really lived up to the hype.

Also known as The Devils In Mykonos (amongst many other titles) the film takes place on the gorgeous white washed, sun kissed streets, fields and harbours of the island which is a place that looks every bit as gorgeous as the acts carried out by the films perpetrators are loathsome. We are introduced to what appears to be a honeymooning couple Christopher and Celia played by Robert Behling and Jane Lyle. All is going well until they decide to have sex in a telephone box whilst phoning Christopher’s mother and letting her hear their lusty groans on the other end in London (you can tell its London, Big Ben strikes as the call goes through). If you think that is not quite right behaviour you would be correct and things go dramatically further downhill after that as Christopher sets up his wife as bait so he can voyeuristically photograph her in action and then the couple who we discover are on the run from similar pranks at home torture and kill her lures at leisure. To say that the majority of the deaths in the film are inventive is a right understatement too. The lucky ones did indeed simply only get their brains blown out!  If this is not enough, the evidence of Christopher’s insanity become all the clearer as he seems to be deluded into a god complex that makes him think he is justified in doing what he does to the filthy perverts that are not at all innocent on the island.  These include a homosexual couple, a lesbian heroin user, rapist hippies and a lusty cougar played by Jessica Dublin of Toxic Avenger III and Troma’s War infamy. To be fair she is a bit of a pervert and the scene were Christopher reverses roles and acts as bait engaging in some water sports and not the type that take place in the sea is one of those scenes that stays and haunts your head for some time to come. It also should be mentioned that in one scene that Celia won’t put out for him (not surprising she is a little shagged out) Christopher goes and takes his pleasure with a goat! Although it is very obviously simulated as is the subsequent killing, its bleats are heartfelt and painful and you can really understand just why the film ended up in the dock.

Christopher is a far bigger pervert and piece of scum than anyone he victimises. He’s a homophobic, racist (the black detective who is hunting for them is described as a “funny little nigger”) cold blooded murderer and there is absolutely no way that anyone can feel any compassion for him or his acts and he is one of the nastiest characters ever committed to celluloid. One does get the feeling that Celia is at times not such a willing accomplice to his exploits following him more out of loyalty but there are times she is very much Myra to his Ian too and as a couple they are very well suited, that is until the final amazing reel of the film which again is designed very much to leave you speechless. Another thing that will stay with you just as long as the film is its amazing soundtrack, (which you will find among the extras included.) The songs that were recorded and I am assuming sung by Nikos Lavranos are every bit as much as deserving to be heard on a Greek island as Demis Roussos. Once you have in particularly heard ‘Destination Understanding’ and marvelled at its lyrics you will be singing it for weeks and it should have been a Eurovision winner. In fact it’s so amazing I’m including a link to it at the end here.

Amazingly Arrow did the unbelievable and got this past the BBFC completely uncut, first a while ago on DVD and now for the first time ever on Blu-Ray in both the UK and in American territories. Apart from a few glare ups on screen and a bit of background audio fuzz it looks and sounds fantastic and the island sparkles and will have it on the top of your holiday destination wish list. I have no idea what the tourist board thought of it on Mykonos but I did show this once to someone who had lived there and she was not impressed. This is definitely up there with other holiday destination films such as its compatriot in criminality ‘Anthropophagus The Beast’, ‘Who Could Kill A Child’ and ‘Voyage To Agatis,’ in fact I feel like packing my bags already but first there is a wealth of extras to view. I am rather hoping they will answer some questions certainly about the two stars of the film as after making just a couple of features Lyle effectively disappeared off the face of the earth and Behling perhaps as tortured as the character he played “committed suicide by putting the tube at the end of a propane tank down his throat.” Not a nice way to go by any means!

First up we have a fairly in depth “exploring the Island Of Death’ feature courtesy of Steven Thrower author of the fantastic Nightmares USA book. Always interesting and highly knowledgeable Thrower takes us through all the films alternative titles and gives us a brief introduction to its director who was apparently inspired to make this particular film after seeing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at a Greek cinema. He obviously thought he would make something far less tasteful and definitely succeeded. Good to hear Thrower reiterating many of the observation I made on the film, he’s obviously a man who has heard a Demis Roussos song or two in his time too and it was good to have the feature made by Marc Morris and Jake West rather than Calum Waddell for a change. Next up we return To The Island Of Death for a featurette where the director does as described and takes us around the island locations 40 years after shooting the film. No surprises that it has changed very little over the years kind of stuck in time, even the restaurant where the gay wedding reception was filmed is still there (although very expensive apparently). He’s a genial host and an enthusiastic one on this travelogue and it’s also good to hear Nico reiterate what we all knew anyway that no goats were harmed at all in the making of this movie. At the end we get the biggest surprise of all though when he mentions perhaps revisiting is fortuitous and an omen that will lead to the making of Island Of Death 2!! He’s even wearing a hat with a logo on it. Now if this is really true (and I somehow suspect not) that would be most welcome.

Back in time we are next up for an Archive interview with Mastorakis talking about his ‘recipe movie’ Island Of Death which he admits he made as he needed to money. He wrote it in a week with the intention of being disgusting, perverse and violent knowing that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film the violence within he had abhorred had made a load of cash for a relatively small outlay.  He makes it quite clear that the ideas explored in the film were not from his heart but the film did exactly as it intended. Interesting to note that he describes his lead Behling as deeply disturbed and complex character too who had not managed to get to grips with his sexuality, something that does seem to come across in the film. Rydel was apparently a sweet and innocent person who he hopes is still alive!

Presented in four parts and running for an epic 2 and a half hours there is a documentary about the films of the director. This was certainly going to be a learning curve for me as apart from Island the only other one of Mastorakis films that I had ever seen was The Zero Boys (1986) and that was so long ago I really could not remember anything really about it. That is not all either as despite racking my brains I couldn’t think of any genre directors or films at all from Greek film makers with the exception of Nikos Nikolaidis and his staggering 1990 picture Singapore Sling, a film that really does deserve a new lease of life and a debut UK release (hint, hint)! There’s certainly a world of difference between Island Of Death and the Universal Pictures big budget / star film that was made next The Greek Tycoon in 1977. The documentary flits from film to film with a lot of clips from them all along with the director providing snippets of info about them and the stories behind the making of. Despite the running time though it seems quite padded out and not fantastically insightful. The bulk of talk about Island Of Death for example is taken from extras already on this disc and there is far too much in the way of clips and footage for films such as ‘The Time Traveller’ and ‘Sky High’ that bothering to watch them afterwards would be kind of pointless. As for a whole 35 minute segment on one film ‘Nightmare At Noon,’ anecdotes and interviews aside, you would definitely be advised to see the film first.  It’s an interesting enough one-watch feature though all in all if you have the time and it may pave the way for you to track down more of Nico’s films. There is also a trailer reel if you want a further look into things too. Finally there are trailers for Island Of Death and its opening scenes under alternative names along with those all-important soundtrack numbers. .

All this does kind of show you though that Island Of Death was far from the work of a degenerate pervert but a highly intelligent, humorous and enthusiastic film maker, one who has dedicated his whole life to his art. As for the degenerate pervert who enjoys watching a film like Island Of Death well that’s me and I guess you if you have read this far and I am not going to feel guilty in the slightest!

(Pete Woods)

http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/island-of-death-2