I can't help but think that if Cushing bothered to watch this dung heap of a movie he would have been seriously embarrassed. From the 30 or 40 shots from a revolver without reloading to the banana Gatling gun, each scene was more ridiculous than the others. A truly wasted hour and a half of my life.

Taken for what it's intended to be this movie isn't nearly as bad as most others have said. Unfortunately many people are quick to criticize a film for not living up to their preconceptions, and even more just like to slam movies to make themselves feel superior to the film makers, as if mocking a film were somehow a greater accomplishment than creating one in the first place. People like that should limit their opinions to two words --- "It sucks" --- and let it go at that. Anything more is a waste of time.Getting back to MONSTER ISLAND: First the good points. It's well produced and quite well photographed. The sets look good and the locations, while limited, are beautiful. And despite the rather violent opening it is clearly intended for children, and rather young children at that. It reminds me more than anything of the old BANANA SPLITS ADVENTURE HOUR. I'm quite sure if you sat a bunch of six year olds down with this movie they'd be quite entertained, and a kid's film that entertains kids can hardly be called a failure. Regarding the much maligned monster effects, granted they're not convincing but this is explained away in a reasonably plausible manner, and bad as they are they're integrated into the film with clever and reasonably successful perspective shots. The seaweed creatures are simple but initially impressive even if they lose something in the full shots. And the "French" castaway is certainly cute.On the debit side: Well, crappy monsters even plausibly explained still look like crap, and the comic professor becomes just unbearable after a while. And the action is staged very poorly.Final verdict: watch it with a bunch of little kids before you pass judgment. Smug frat boys and MST3K fans are worthless when assessing a movie like this.

I give this trainwreck a "7" just because the group I watched it with had such a good time HOWLING with laughter at how horrible it all was - everything is wrong - the direction, the acting, the "special" effects, etc. Two vets like Stamp and Cushing take the money and run - they are barely in it - the two male leads are like oil and water - one guy is dead eyed and no energy and the other David Hatton overacts so much you are stunned at the hammy performance. He must have known how bad the thing was so he decided to give a 1000% to make up for the lame script and bad effects - he acts with his eyes, he acts with his eyebrows, he acts with his MOUSTACHE - he plays the nervous, sniveling kind of sissy character that was very popular in comedies from 1930's and 1940's (Edward Everret Horton usually played them) but the thing is.....THIS MOVIE IS MADE IN THE 1980's!!!! We laughed so hard when the "dinosaur" monster finally showed up - it is so bad, so not real, so not scary that we saluted the filmmaker for even yelling "Action" - wow - is it lame and then the scene where they encounter giant caterpillars is also unintentionally hilarious. So for fans of Grade Z cheese, pull up a chair and laugh - for those looking for a good old fashioned Jules Verne adventure - you are out of luck,.

Unfortunately, this one constituted another gaffe within my ongoing Halloween challenge since it's not really a horror film despite title, director (he'd later make the gory PIECES [1983]) and presence of genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy! In fact, it's a typical Jules Verne adventure (based on his much-filmed "Mysterious Island") which proves surprisingly palatable – thanks also to a lively score – though unbalanced by comedy relief from the youthful hero's bumbling/cowardly sidekick, a Professor of Elocution whose name is constantly mispronounced ("T. Artelet not tartlet!").Cushing is the protagonist's rich uncle who has purchased an island, to which the boy is sent and where he meets a variety of dangers (pirates, cannibals, monsters) – eventually, there's a twist with respect to most of these, which thankfully explains the sheer poverty of the creatures on display! On the other hand, Naschy has a very small role at the start as a man who has struck gold – which is then coveted by his associates. The latter include Terence Stamp who, for obvious reasons, was Cushing's chief rival for the acquisition of the island; later on, he turns up on it (ludicrously shrouded from top to bottom complete with anachronistic goggles!) with his bandit horde to take the gold by force – to this end, he even plants a female 'shipwreck victim' to lure the hero into divulging the loot's whereabouts.Coupled with the far better GORILLA AT LARGE (1954; see above) on Fox's-by-way-of-MGM "Midnite Movies" banner, it offers the film both in English and Spanish. At first, always the stickler for a film's native country being its original language, I started watching the film in Spanish but when a narrator began translating the credits into Spanish and the English subtitles proved to be of the descriptive "hard of hearing" variety, I soon gave up my puritan pretensions and watched it with the more 'user friendly' English soundtrack on. At least, one does get to hear Cushing and Stamp reciting their own lines this way...