USA, 1988
Review:JA Kerswell
What could have easily been called BOOBS ISLAND, given how often bras and bikini tops ping off, SNAKE ISLAND is a Florida-lensed movie so obscure it was never released in North America. A group of horny, drunk twentysomethings marooned on an island are picked off one by one by a stonewashed-jeans-clad mystery killer with a snake fetish. Chaotic and often befuddling, it is otherwise a surprisingly ambitious effort, sure to provide some fun for less discerning fans of cheesy late ‘80s slashers.
It begins in 1979 (the only nod to that date is a character wearing a headband): a man and his son attend a snake ritual on an island, where the father begs a shaman of sorts to free his son, Michael, from a curse (or something). It turns out the man is ‘renowned’ herpetologist Dr Waylan, who runs the local Reptile World Serpentarium on the mainland. One night, a group of high schoolers let off fireworks outside the complex to taunt their classmate Michael, accidentally setting it alight and killing the man, his wife and his daughter (who we never see). However, Michael’s body is never found.
Fast forward eight years, and the excitable high schoolers have grown into excitable twenty-somethings centred on friends Kim and Tammie, who say things like “You’re bruising my ass!” during lycra-clad aerobics sessions and “He looks like he’s great in bed. For a white man.” The group is looking forward to a yacht cruise to celebrate the 4th of July, organised by Tom, who is Kim’s ex and manages her new boyfriend, rock star Chris Michaels. … Hmmm, damn, I wish there were a clue to the killer’s identity … Before they leave for their trip, three of the group are killed by someone wielding a hand puppet with a snake’s head and blades for fangs. Breezily brushing off their friend’s no-show, the rest depart for the high seas. Later, someone sabotages the boat, and they find themselves marooned on a mysterious island, seemingly inhabited only by snakes, with a totem pole carved with nine heads. However, dedicated to booze and boobs, they are mostly unaware that someone is stalking them with murderous intent as they traipse around the island, singing the “99 Bottles of Beer” song on repeat …
Objectively, SNAKE ISLAND is not a good film by any stretch, but I’ve seen worse (just about). It was seemingly edited with a chainsaw, with a scene of blaring music jarringly cut to another scene with a different type of blaring music (usually a song with lyrics such as “Hit me with your nightstick”), with little discernible rhythm. It also has a script that appears made up as shooting went along (it never quite settles on whether there was a snake curse or whether everything was the result of some kind of experimentation about regeneration or something else entirely). The bulk of the movie very much fits the slasher mould of punishing sinners for past crimes, with a killer stalking people in an isolated location, and is notably a 4th July slasher ten years before I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997). However, in its closing 20 minutes, it makes a somewhat muddled swerve into monster movie territory, with a couple of transformation scenes that, whilst they wouldn’t give Rob Bottin sleepless nights, aren’t half bad for a low-budget regional horror movie (although, disappointingly, many of the death scenes are of the cut away and spray a wall with fake blood variety). Although not listed in the credits, the special effects appear to be the work of a Floridian crew led by Rick Gonzales, who also worked on WITCH STORY (1989) and the killer baboon movie SHAKMA (1990).
As with many regional slashers, the acting is variable to say the least, with the often overblown and melodramatic script leading to many presumably unintentionally funny moments. Some of the side characters clearly had no previous thespian experience, including a hilariously wooden coroner and a middle-aged nurse who sounds like Zsa Zsa Gabor. SNAKE ISLAND also has a gas attendant who is a dead ringer for Ron Jeremy. Adding to that, the film not only has the obligatory fat sheriff but also a portly cruiser in dungarees called Al, who, in one scene, accidentally drives a quad bike off a pier and laments, “My potato chips are wet!”—and who later tries flirting with a couple of the girls whilst continuously farting (Todd from THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF SALT LAKE CITY is that you?).
There are some unanswered questions, such as why are there are wolves howling on an island off Florida? And, can you really be knocked unconscious by a light tap to the back of the head with a shovel? Also, a bigger mystery than the blindingly obvious identity of its killer is why the film was never released in its home country in any format. An even bigger mystery is why it was referred to as SNAKE ISLAND II by the local press when filming was announced.
Florida Today reported that the movie (under its head-scratching faux-sequel title) was scheduled to start filming in Brevard County in October 1987 (shooting through November to December). Indianantic tiki carver Ed Volonnino was hired to create a 13-foot tiki with eight faces to “represent the teens”. He told the paper that “… he was given a script and asked to capture the personality and description of each character in wood.” Director James Ingrassia said he hoped to get Rod Steiger to play the father for name value (which didn’t happen), and 20 of the main roles were given to actors from New York and Miami (with auditions for local teenagers held for the kids that appear in the prologue). Murray MacDougall, who played singer Chris Michaels, was a real wannabe pop star who released a catchy, high-energy single in 1987 called You’re My Number One (with some sources saying he was an ex-Chippendales dancer). The director’s previous “surfing and bikini” film SUNSTROKE U.S.A had been filmed in 1985 and, at the time, was still unreleased (it did come out as HOT SPLASH in 1988, but like this film, didn’t appear to get a release domestically).
SNAKE ISLAND is so obscure that it isn’t even mentioned in Brian Albright’s otherwise exhaustive book Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990. To date, the only release has been on VHS in Germany and South Korea, soon after it was made. The version I saw (with Korean subs) doesn’t feature closing credits, which makes it practically impossible to identify most of its cast (with no female cast members listed on any release). Which, for some of them, may be a blessing.
BODY COUNT 13:
Female 7 / Male 6
SNAKE ISLAND (Full Movie Korean VHS rip in English)
MURRAY MACDOUGALL - You're My Number One
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