SlaughterIsland

Slaughter Island (2008)

So you would figure with a name like Slaughter Island the movie would be pretty badass, right? Well all the movie really proved to me was that the ability to make poorly written and executed low budget shot on digital horror movies isn’t limited to just Americans. Seems like the Japanese are quite good at it as well.

So the setup here has a group of young friends heading off to an adventure on an island. This is a bad thing because we see before they get there that something or someone bad is on the island and enjoys hunting people down. So they get there and after a day of frolicking on the beach and ghost stories around the campfire a couple head out into the jungle. The guy turns unexpectedly creepy and after an entirely unconvincing attack and bondage thing he is killed. She wanders into camp and the rest of the movie is the “monster” taking them out one at a time.

I had hope for the movie but right away realized I was in for a long 90 or so minutes. This is the kind of movie that spends way too much time on giggling and squeaking Japanese girls playing in their bikinis. And trust me even I can’t believe that I just wrote that last sentence, but it is true! It almost appears that they adlibbed most of the movie, because other then splitting up and getting killed nothing happens. No attempt is made to explain what is going on or even why the characters are on the island. Oh and what is absolutely mind-boggling is that until they either wander off or are killed we don’t even know most of the characters names. I’m not kidding here. Most of the characters aren’t identified until the rest of the cast is wandering around the jungle shouting their name. The movie is topped off by an utterly predictable and boring ending, which I guess fits with the rest of the film. Oh and the supernatural gimmick even robs us (the audience) of at least the pleasure of an interesting killer. This makes for a very slow and tedious movie watching experience.

The one thing that the back of the box and the first kill had me hoping for was some decent gore. But other then a nifty spike thru the foot in the prologue of the movie Slaughter Island fails to deliver the goods. Almost all the kills are off-screen and consist of blood splatter (some of which is at completely the wrong angle which is distracting) being tossed at the actors. The couple of times that you do get to see something are both really poorly executed gags that left me rolling my eyes.

This movie was put out by Cinema Epoch, which has had some cool releases. This is most certainly not one of them. I don’t recommend that anyone waste his or her time on Slaughter Island.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer