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| Images courtesy of Arrow Films |
Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. Breaking into the film business doesn’t
always involve doing what you want. You
have to work at it a little while to get where you want to be in the
industry. Such was the case with Greek
cult director and television personality Nico Mastorakis which Arrow Video
continues to shine a brightly lit spotlight upon as evidenced by their
forthcoming six-film boxed set encompassing much of his work. Just prior to his debut film, an infamous and
arguably reprehensible Grindhouse shocker called Island of Death, Mastorakis
interviewed seventeen Greek students in prison who were arrested amid the 1973
Athens Polytechnic uprising who as it turns out were later tortured by
authorities. Mastorakis briefly left
Greece to pursue film work overseas after his television image evaporated
following the interviews, but not before creating what is still widely
considered to be one of the most heavily censored and banned films in the
world.
Londoners Christopher (Robert Behling) and Celia (Jane Lyle)
are a young couple who rent a home on the Greek island of Mykonos presumably
for their honeymoon, when in fact they are depraved sexual sadists and serial murderers
ready to engage in their latest killing spree of anyone they deem perverted or
evil. Despite the scenic beauty all
around them including but not limited to the harbor, residents and the
architecture of Mykonos, the two immediately begin terrorizing the populace as
director Mastorakis piles on one unspeakable atrocity after another such as
bestiality, crucifixion, homophobic murder, rape, incest, watersports, overdosing,
incineration and decapitation all involving random characters they come into
contact with. However, Celia starts
tiring of Christopher’s murder spree and starts experiencing premonitory
visions of a bearded rapist who knows of their crimes and threatens to bring
them both down.
Banned in Great Britain as a video nasty for many years and
later disowned by the director who remarked he was just trying to make a shock
picture and otherwise doesn’t enjoy the film anymore, Island of Death
is, for lack of a better term, really fucking mean if not borderline
sociopathic. Predating the Nikkatsu
Violent Pink shock fest Assault! Jack the Ripper which also traveled
with two young lovebirds who decide to spice up their sex lives by committing
mass sadistic murders, Mastorakis’ film while unmistakably Greek in setting and
form is a butt ugly evil bastard of a film determined to erode out any and all
defensibility. Inspired by The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre and the smell of money, Mastorakis more or less sold his soul to
conjure up this rapid-fire gatling gun of shock and awe. Written within a week and shot guerilla style
on the fly by Nikos Gardelis with a subtly disturbing grindhousey score by
Nikos Lavranos, the film doesn’t contain great performances per se but it is
chock full of gratuitous nudity, sex, drug use and all manner of sexually
deviant behaviors.
While still wading through the filmography of Nico
Mastorakis, including films he’s written rather than directed, even Island
of Death presents something of a challenge for your reviewer. How do you assess or analyze something so
determined to shock it could care less about painting realistic characters or
situations. No, this is a nonstop geek
show filmed in the painterly splendor of Greece designed to pummel the viewer
into oblivion before simply ending. Can you
recommend this film? No, absolutely
not. It is intentionally deliberately
indefensible and is frankly cruel and nasty for no apparent reason. Worse still, to Mastorakis’ chagrin, people
keep asking him about this film when he himself has long since moved on from it
and continues to encourage the rest of the filmgoing public to do the
same. Yeah he supervised the 2K transfer
on bluray and it comes with a fair amount of extras, but there’s ample reasons
he has tried and failed to forget this.
--Andrew Kotwicki
