It is quite a common occurrence for horror/gore movies to have an underlying right-wing bias and Island of Death is no exception. Among the victims in this film are: an artist, two homosexuals, a black man, a middle-aged nymphomaniac, and a lesbian junkie. Some of these are minority groups that regularly come under attack in the West because they are seen as threats to the established order of society. Particularly vehement in their condemnation of 'outsiders' like these is the church, so it is fitting perhaps that the murderous force here is a religious maniac, who is not averse to a bit of bestiality but cannot abide blasphemy. The film posits a world where those who are different will meet with violent deaths but at the same time shows the killer to be a bigot who is more perverted than those whom he seeks to kill. All this of course is to imbue the film with a subtext which it scarcely deserves since the film's raison d'être is simply to catalogue as many gruesome practices as it can cram in to the running time. This it does adequately enough despite being saddled with an atrocious performance from the murderer's sister/girlfriend and an absurd soundtrack composed of ominous synth murmurings and a recurring folk song motif.
Review of Island of Death
