(1985)
Reviewed By-Sean Patrick Dolan Director: Nicholas Beardsley Cast: Linda Blair, Antonio De Teffe, Ajita Wilson, Christina Lai, Luciano Pigozzi Source-Lightning Video VHS
A woman named Daly (Linda Blair) storms the office of jewel dealer Mr. Luker, clearly meaning business. "Who the hell are you?" he asks, as the woman holds him at gunpoint. "Let’s just say, a dissatisfied former employee" is her response. She was a prisoner at his forced labor camp in South America, Emerald Island- where one hundred women were still held until four days ago. But no more. Keeping the gun pointed at his head, Daly begins to tell him how her gang of jewel thieves infiltrated the camp and brought the operation down . . .
Emerald Island is deep in the tropical rain forests of South America where the women are trapped in a living hell of a women's penitentiary, wearing torn filthy rags that barely cover their bodies as they work long hours searching the muddy swamps for precious stones. They are all guilty of one crime or another, from prostitution to murder, but there are few sadistic enough to call this justice. Does this all sound familiar? It should, and not just because this is your standard exploitation film. It has all the standard elements. The women are dirty and sweaty, and their inadequate clothing does not even cover their breasts as they saw logs and perform other tasks. The guard leaders, two extremely brutal men and an equally savage woman (played to perfection by Franca Stoppi) treat the prison as their personal playground. The guards whip the women for the slightest infraction and rape them in the woods should the mood strike them. The Warden (Luciano Pigozzi) is an unflinching sadist who could have walked straight out of any Nazi prison camp. He devises cruel tortures for any prisoner that steps out of line; he buries one woman shoulders deep in the mud and leaves her for the snakes and ties another to the guards’ tower to burn in the noon sun. The women themselves are hardened criminals, used to the hard work and mistreatment, and the usual coarse language and cat fights you expect are present here. They are housed in small cells, four women to a room, and of course the newest prisoner quickly learns that she is going to be someone's bitch. Between the rapes, lesbian sex, and communal showers, I don't think there are more than ten minutes in this film that don't feature a fully nude woman.
SAVAGE ISLAND should also look familiar to genre fans because it is nothing more than a loose remake of ESCAPE FROM HELL. All of the actors and a substantial amount of the original footage are used. What the director has done is trim the film down by fifteen minutes (to a mere 76 minute runtime) and added extra scenes (to of which, the beginning and ending scenes, feature Linda Blair in order to put a "big name" on the bill for American audiences. In doing so, he created a far inferior film compared to the original with a greatly simplified plot and zero character development. Antonio De Teffe still plays the male lead, but instead of playing the prison doctor who falls in love with one of the women, he is given the far less meaty role of Laredo, a jewel thief hired by Daly to infiltrate the camp, steal the jewels, and free the women. Christina Lai, who played the female love interest in the original, is relegated to a scant few scenes, as is Ajita Wilson her cellmate and sometimes rival for "alpha female"
status at the camp. Instead, the female lead this time goes to a character named Maria, another of Daly’s jewel thieves who impersonates a prisoner, giving Laredo and his men an excuse to impersonate guards and show up at the camp in the first place. Scenes which displayed the conflict between Teffe’s doctor and Pigozzi’s warden are replaced by brief interludes where Laredo’s men discuss their plans for overthrowing the prison guards and shutting the operation down. There are more gun battles and extended fight scenes than the original (including the finale, in which the camp is virtually leveled by dynamite) however, these scenes too are marred by sloppy editing. For example, at one point during the final battle, Franca Stoppi’s character returns to the fray- problem is, she was murdered a good twenty minutes back in the film. The long trek back through the jungle to freedom is one area which could have stood to be cut down. But, of course, the whole expedition- snakes, leeches, quicksand and all- is presented almost in its entirety.
OK, so maybe some people don’t watch exploitation films (especially the women in prison variety) for plot and character development- fair enough. But in stripping this film down fifteen minutes (not counting the time allowed to insert the Linda Blair scenes) they also had to cut a lot of the "good stuff". While there is still ample nudity in this version, there is far less than the original, and all sex scenes have been cut. Same goes for the majority of the more sadistic scenes of brutality inflicted by the guards. At least the director had the wisdom to keep the excellent nude fight scene between Christina Lai and "transsexual superstar" Ajita Wilson (believe it or not, this chick was born a man) because it is without a doubt the highlight of SAVAGE ISLAND.
This is without a doubt a lightweight and amateur entry into what can be a very enjoyable sleazy genre. By the way, any Linda Blair fans can forget about seeing her naked- in the seven minutes or so of film she actually appears in, she is never even on Emerald Island. Do yourself a favor and see ESCAPE FROM HELL (Femmine Infernali, 1979), the excellent film they mangled to make SAVAGE ISLAND. This film was also released as ORINOCO SEX PRISON (Orinoco Prigioniere del Sesso, 1980) but I have not seen this version, so I cannot comment on it.
I reviewed the 1985 Lightning Video VHS release of this film, part of their "Wanted Wicked Women" line. ESCAPE FROM HELL, the original film, is available on 2001 Troma DVD.
1.5 Bitch Slaps Also, read Sean's review for ESCAPE FROM HELL
