(aka TUOMION SAARI)
(2023, Finland)
[review by JA Kerswell]
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| It starts strongly, but it's all downhill from there on THE ISLAND OF DOOM... |
A forgettable new slasher from Finland featuring a cast of daytime soap opera stars. THE ISLAND OF DOOM boasts beautiful cinematography that might make you think you are in for something rather special - but it is otherwise routine all the way. A group of friends go camping on a remote island on a lake; where they disturb the lair of a killer who turns out not to be an urban legend after all.
Mia (online fitness influencer Sonja Aiello) finds her boyfriend in bed with another woman and flees to her best friend Maija (Emma Lahti), who suggests they drown her sorrows in a boozy night out. At a local bar, Maija’s boyfriend Rami (Karo Auvinen) says that Mia needs an even bigger distraction and suggests they take a trip to a place on a lake known locally as Doom Island, which sounds just like what a heartbroken girl needs. Not. Rami further sells it to them - and their friends Kimmo (Konsta Hietanen) and his girlfriend Laura (Jenni Rautiainen) - by telling them that there is an urban legend that a father left his young son to die on that island after he set his baby sister on fire. Mia strikes up a flirtatious conversation with a bouncer called Teemu (Markku Pulli), who also thinks it will be a good idea and says he will come and join them on the island the next day.
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| You may recognise the killer's threads ... |
Hinting that the whole group is a) not very bright and b) has a death wish, as they approach the island by boat, Laura sees a man with a sackcloth mask and holding an axe on the shoreline. But they all brush this off and decide to carry on camping!
The group spend the first half of the movie on the not-very hospitable looking island pretending not to shiver under the slate grey skies, but routinely pair off and cheat on their partners. All the while the killer - who has clearly been an understudy for Jason Voorhees in FRIDAY THE 13TH Part 2 (1981) - does little to release the audience from this tedium. Eventually, even he can’t take it any more and starts to bump off the horny campers one-by-one …
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| My exact same face as I watched THE ISLAND OF DOOM. |
The first five minutes of THE ISLAND OF DOOM are gorgeously shot and make the best of the desolate, chilly beauty of the Finnish lakes. In a prologue set in 1967, we see a man lead his young son - who is tied in ropes, with his head covered in a bag - onto the island and up to a shack. Whilst the man contemplates what to do, his son finds an axe and kills him at the waterside. The camerawork is rich and expansive, but the film quickly falls apart when we are introduced to the main cast. Whilst it is to be applauded to have actors and actresses who aren’t supermodels falling victim to a psycho, a bit of personality wouldn’t have gone amiss, too. Although to be fair, the meandering script doesn’t really give them much to work with. Even worse, the killer has little presence and, despite his ever handy axe, dodders around like an octogenarian at a buffet. The film is also coy with its nudity and violence. This paucity of thrills and spills is thrown into ever greater relief by the comparison to cinematography that belongs in a much better movie. And, ultimately, any hopes that it might throw a curveball are dashed apart from a motive reveal that appears to make zero sense.
The film is another spin-off of a popular Finnish soap opera SECRET LIVES and features a number of actors from it. Previously, slasher spin-offs of the same soap NIGHTMARE (2011) and NIGHTMARE 2: THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUES (2014) (which featured a very similar plot) had been sizeable successes with local audiences. Perhaps unsurprisingly, THE ISLAND OF DOOM bombed in Finland when it was released to cinemas at the tail end of December 2023. It is not hard to see why. Whilst repetition is often the slasher movie’s best friend, it still needs to be done well and nothing here is lifted out of the solidly pedestrian.
BODYCOUNT 6 
female: 2 / male: 4
1) Male whacked in the back with an axe
2) Female hit in the back with a flying axe
3) Male killed (method unseen)
4) Male whacked with an axe
5) Male whacked in the neck with an axe
6) Female whacked with an axe
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