The Fiend of Dope Island (1961) ** (out of 4) Charlie Davis (Bruce Bennett) is a psychotic man who owns an island in the Carabean where he whips and treats everyone there like slaves. One day a boat comes by and a beautiful dancer is on board and Charlie sets his attention to her, which causes a mutiny.THE FIEND OF DOPE ISLAND is a pretty bad movie if you want to be a snob and look at it as something it's not. If you're wanting a good looking, Oscar-winning film then this here certainly isn't going to be for you. The movie is actually very fast-paced and I'd argue that it's got a good bit of entertainment to be had from it.The highlight is without question the insane and over-the-top performance of Bennett. I'm going to say he probably watched several Bela Lugosi movies when he was younger and perhaps he realized that everything about the movie was bad so he hammed it up for some entertainment. It's his nutty performance that makes the film worth watching and it was really fun seeing and hearing his insane laughing and non-stop rants. Tania Velia does a nice job in her role of the eye candy dancer.The film has many campy moments throughout but there's no question that it's one of the more outrageous and over-the-top adventure movies out there. The "dope" connection isn't played up as much as one would have hoped but this is still a fun little movie as long as you don't take it too serious.

Charlie Davis owns an island in the Caribbean. There, he keeps a group of Hispanic people in virtual slavery--toiling on is marijuana plantation. On the island, he mostly beats the snot out of everyone with his whip and he has the personality of Attila the Hun with a very, very bad toothache! Why his armed guards don't just kill him, I don't understand--especially since he beats them, too!Oddly, a blonde Yugoslavian bombshell gets stranded on the island (now THAT does not happen every day). At first, Charlie is pretty sweet. However, later, after having a few drinks, he becomes a crazed rapist and is only stopped when she belts him over the head with a statue. Only minutes later, he awakens and has a hilarious scene where he runs about having a giant temper tantrum--screaming, yelling, bounding about and acting like a jerk (you really have to see it to believe it--it was worse than Michael Richards during his comedy club rant or Courtney love just being Courtney Love). Into this mess comes David, who pounds Charlie to a pulp--but never stops to tie him up or kill him. This is a stupid cliché--I would have ended Charlie's reign of terror right there and then. Instead, David and his new allies spend most of the rest of the film keeping Charlie bottled up in his hut--shooting at but deliberately missing him when he tries to come out to play.Watch it yourself to see the thrilling conclusion or just to watch Bruce Bennett overact in a manner that almost defies description--it's all good. Well, when I say "good", I don't necessarily mean well made--it is a cheap and silly film after all. I mean good in the sense that it's good for a laugh because of the histrionics and clever ways the director figured out how to "accidentally" show off Ms. Velia's breasts. As for Tania Velia (as the blonde), she really has only two purposes to be in the film--to provide sexual tension and to briefly expose her breasts. Why they put this Yugoslavian into the film is beyond me, but she sure must have needed the money!Overall, it's bad but in a highly entertaining way. I knew it was crap but still found it all very watchable--a must for bad movie fans.By the way, Bennett COULD act, as I just saw him in THE COSMIC MAN--where he was quite sane and a good bit calmer! If you get a chance, read Bennett's biography on IMDb--he was a fascinating man.

Wow! What a bad and yet at the same time awesome film experience. The acting is so-over-the-top, the storyline so twisted, and the mood, tone, and pace so depraved, that I honestly can say that I have never seen anything quite like this. For many, that will be good news if they can say the same! Don't get me wrong, Fiend of Dope Island is an atrocious film. It has awful acting, no special effects, and has a story with little merit or any redeeming qualities. It is; however; a fun bad film to watch and has perhaps one of the most outrageous performances I have seen in some time. Dope island dictator Bruce Bennett runs his island whipping natives and friends alike any time they don't move fast enough for him or displease him in some way - which it seems is all the time as he is always drunk. Bennett lies to a beautiful blonde entertainer(we'll get to her in a minute) to come to the island for $500 and then has plans on seducing/raping her and making her his own. In the meantime, he is also running a drug operation and plans governmental overthrows in the Caribbean(?). I remember Bruce Bennett from Treasure of the Sierra Madre as a pretty restrained actor and an actor of some ability, but watching him in this film as given me a whole different perspective on him. This guy is one crazy, funny, weird and depraved guy to make a film like this. As bad and hammy as he is, he makes this film immensely entertaining barking out commands and cracking a whip or just laughing maniacally. The rest of the cast or story is nothing special except for the Yugoslavian bombshell Tania Velia as the entertainer. She is an okay actress, but what she does to a black swimsuit is just amazing. This movie has a beautiful blonde, a man-eating shark, an island dictator, and so many other bizarre things - what else could you want in a bad film?

Awesome awful poverty row Carribbean coconut extravaganza uses TV level production values to showcase the boozy brutish behavior of Bruce Bennett's power crazed island dictator. He actually seems to be drunk on screen to even be passably able to cope with the shoddy goings on and the loutish behavior. Like a 70 minute condensing of the worst Columbia Trader Tom serial ever made and mixed with loony bar room antics....and spiced up a bit with some Eurotrash floozy who does a hootchie kootchie dance in reel 3. It all ends like a Flaming Moe when the locals and weak white loafers set fire to all the dried leaves piled about. Even illegal immigrants would be hard pressed to find this interesting. It is like everyone on screen is retarded, as if GILLIGANS ISLAND and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST had the reels mixed up. The blonde dame in the high heels and fishnet stockings is actually billed as The Yugslavian Bombshell. Wasn't she off the beaten track! The film seems to be made in some Mexican picnic ground.