Classic Horrors Club

Before I’m accused of false advertising, I’m a completist and will include Mystery on Monster Island (1981) in Naschy November, no matter how small his part. However, I didn’t realize how small his part was going to be. It’s a cameo in the true sense of the word, appearing in the first scene of the movie, most of the time behind the credits. Nevertheless, his character, Flynt, is pivotal, setting the explosion that causes a treasure trove of gold to be buried inside a volcano.

Top-billed Terence Stamp’s character, Skinner, fares only a little better. He also has a pivotal role, appearing in maybe three scenes. He’s the ruthless captain of a ship and leader of a gang of bandits searching for the gold. Much of the time, his character is running around on the island with a mask that barely distinguishes him from some of the monsters encountered. I’m highly suspicious that it’s not just “someone” in the mask, dubbed later by Stamp.

Believe it or not, Peter Cushing appears more than the other two, which is to say, not much, either. He plays William T. Kolderup, the richest man in the world. He can afford to outbid Skinner to purchase an island for $5 million. Then, he can afford to send his nephew, Jeff (Ian Serra) to the island for an adventure before he gets married to his sweetheart, Meg (Ana Obregon.) Cushing looks great! He’s neither as gaunt as he was in Star Wars five years earlier, nor as frail as he was in Biggles: Adventures in Time five years later.

Cushing never phones in a performance, but he makes Mystery on Monster Island worth watching when I can’t think of one other feature that does. To be fair, it’s a children’s movie. During fights, there are “boing” sounds when Professor Thomas Artelect gets bonked on the head. He’s the most annoying thing about this film and I can imagine only the youngest of kids laughing over his repeated antics and squeals. He reminds me of C-3PO with a loose cog or something that causes him to babble even more than he already did.

The “monsters” are goofy, to be sure, but I’ll be darned if they don’t look like they’re full-sized and on set with the humans. There’s a twist late in the film that explains their looks and gives them a touch of reality. I don’t know how they were made. They move too smoothly to be stop-motion or men in suits, and there’s no indication they’re miniatures. It’s faint praise; but, not counting the gill men on the ship, they truly could have been worse.

I couldn’t find much history on the movie other than the fact it was a Spanish/American co-production shown in theaters in Spain and on home video in the U.S. In his excellent book, “Human Beasts: The Films of Paul Naschy,” author Troy Howarth doesn’t have a kind word to say about it. As far as Naschy goes, he’s probably right, but I found some pleasure from Cushing and enjoyed playing games on my phone throughout its overly-long 105 minutes.

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