Savage Island [DVD] [1985] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Based on her success in CHAINED HEAT, Linda Blair does another prison girl film without being a prison girl. She does a cameo scene at the beginning and end of the "film" claiming she was part of the girls. The main film was a combination of two foreign films spliced together (much of the same cast) to make one film with some of the rape scenes removed. HOTEL PARADISE and ESCAPE FROM HELL, were the two original films and I would recommend watching them instead.

Guide: Plenty of FF nudity, shower scene (Cristina Lay, trans-sexual Ajita Wilson, Plus many others), break away smocks.

I decided to give this flik a try after hearing Charles Band of Full Moon Pictures describe its' genesis in the rap he gives as part of the extras in all of the newly re-issued "Grindhouse Collection" from Full Moon. At a point in the past Band apparently found a bunch of sleazy WIP style foreign made films and purchased the rights to them... then re-packaged one of them (as "Savage Island') with a wrap-around story line featuring Linda Blair - in order to give the film a bit of Hollywood Star Power draw for the domestic market.

Personally, altho I'm as big a fan of Linda's work as any, I was more drawn to the film by the promise of some good hard WIP action such as foreign directors (like Jess Franco) can sometimes deliver. Unfortunately, the product provided by the Full Moon "Savage Island" package is flawed by a very poor transfer which renders the viewing experience sub-par. As other reviewers have noted - this is particularly annoying during any dark night-time scenes - which are virtually un-viewable - as well as hindering a full appreciation of the many scenes of naked female flesh - that are likely what one would purchase this product to enjoy in the first place.

But, for any die-hard WIP fans who wished that they could actually SEE what is contained in this twisted little flik - please be aware that there is a MUCH BETTER VERSION available. A little probing around on the internet provided the additional info that this film (in its' original release) was actually an Italian effort (filmed in South America) entitled "Hotel Paradis(e)" (and apparently shot 'back-to-back with a similar film entitled: "Escape From Hell"). This original (widescreen!) version of the film is available with a MUCH better picture quality from: Amazon.co.uk (Britain). Sold as: "Hotel Paradis - the Strong Uncut Version" this is a Swedish release (w/ dubbed English sound). The Euro-disk actually contains 2 separate versions of the film - the 'theatrical' release and a version re-assembled from multiple sources - that provides 'inserts' of 'deleted' hardcore XXX scenes that 'extend' several of the sex scenes portrayed in the film. These 'hardcore' scenes are relatively visually degenerated when compared to the rest of the film's sharp visual quality, but they are (ironically) about as ' clear(NOT)' as the quality of ALL of the Full Moon 'Savage Island' version! While the X rated material adds little to the story-line it IS nice to have the option to view it - AND - there IS one scene involving 'a pipe' that takes on a special nuance when viewed in the hard-core context! Of course there's no Linda Blair in the 'original' movie - AND - the Euro-Region 2 PAL DVD requires a 'region-free' player to view! - something that every mondo-weirdo movie fanatic should invest in!

The Euro-version of this nasty little piece of jungle based sexploitation does deliver the goods that WIP hounds hope to find. Ample female nudity throughout - plenty of sex - a 'classic' 2 girls tied together whipping scene, and lotsa 'showers'. The primary female leads are plenty attractive! - Eurasian hottie Christina Lai gets pretty 'explicit'- as does the impressive Ajita Wilson - baring all - she's arguably the hottest female of the bunch even though 'she' was apparently originally a MAN - letz hear it for modern medicine! For the "Euro "Hotel Paradis" version - 4.5 stars!

I'm generally 'liking' the new crop of 'Grindhouse" product that Full Moon has been releasing, but the picture quality, and content, IS pretty variable from feature to feature. In the case of "Savage Island" the image quality is poor and really detracts from the over-all enjoyment - so, despite the fact that it is packed full of all the good stuff that one looks for in this type of flik, I can't give the Full Moon version more than an 'average' grade.

The poster looks awesome! Like the howl movie is a Pam Grier "Women In Cages" movie with Linda Blair playing Pam Grier... Not so. I'm a huge Linda Blair fan, so huge I'd watch anything she was in! But this movie does not qualify.

Here's what happened: It's 1985, the Director of this movie gets the distribution rights to some really bad Mexican "Woman in Cages" movies, so bad that not even a die hard lover of the genre would be interested in seeing them, so he pieces a few of these movies together to tell a story: A big diamond syndicate in Las Vegas runs black market jewel mining operations with women slaves in tropical Mexico doing the digging. But one woman (Linda Blair) had escaped, tracked down the big boss man, and holds him at gunpoint recounting her story. (Linda Blair does some narration throughout the film.) The director tells the story in a bonus feature on the DVD that the Linda Blair sequence would only require one day of filming and they could afford a good actress, so they got Linda Blair.

Video Quality: The movies in this series come from two (2) sources depending on what tittle you get. In some cases a 35mm print, in others a VHS. This tittle falls into the latter category. I have seen higher quality VHS rips on YouTube.

There is also animal violence in the film.

So, if you find this DVD for $1.00, go ahead and get it if you want to say you've seen it. But for anything more than that, you're being ripped off. And please understand I'm a HUGE Grindhouse fan! But the Full Moon Grindhouse Collection does not seem to deliver. Though Auditions looks kind of good.

Happy Viewing!

I can't believe I got through this whole movie. It is really, really awful, but in a fun way. Lovely ladies whose acting abilities simply defy description.
Perhaps the saving grace was the brilliant portrayal of a door man by a young Penn Gillette (Teller was nowhere to be seen.) Seldom has there been such a match of actor and role. Why he did not receive a best supporting actor Oscar for this film is incomprehensible!
If you have literally NOTHING else to do, you must watch this grisly live action cartoon. You will be amazed that you actually did.

SAVAGE ISLAND begins w/ a woman, submerged in mud / quicksand (quick-mud?), being killed by a large snake. The scene switches to a woman named Daly (Linda Blair) walking into a high-rise, pulling a gun, and shooting a security guard (Penn Gillette!!) in the forehead! Daly's there to tell her former employer about her mistreatment at the hands of his jungle thugs. Of course, this is done using flashbacks of events having nothing to do w/ Daly. The "story" has something to do w/ emeralds, and those profiting from them. However, it's mostly scenes of sweaty women fighting, sweaty men murdering each other, and more sweaty women losing their clothes while fighting. This is punctuated by the occasional narration of Ms. Blair, reminding us that this monotonous mess is supposed to make some sort of sense. Not even the near-constant barrage of full-frontal female nudity can help to ease the agony of this dog-log! Whew!...