Unknown Island

Poster tagline: MEET THE KING OF THE CRUEL LIZARDS IN A DEADLY DUEL!!! An ultra-low-budget variation on the then popular Lost World genre (a group of people, mostly scientists, in an isolated unexplored area full of prehistoric fauna), interesting perhaps only because it was filmed in Technicolor and the lizards – i.e. actors dressed in crappy costumes – shuffle from side to side like drunkards after a binge. The first half hour in a pub and on the deck of a ship is quite uninteresting, the island itself was shot entirely in a studio, where the landscape is replaced by 3 shots – a campground (where about 2 thirds of the time is spent), a place "somewhere in the jungle", which the actors walk through about five times, and an artificial beach. The dodgy effects were amusing, I'd never seen such bad rear projections in a Bert I. Gordon film, and not once do the actors come into direct interaction with the lizards, or perhaps a joint shot (the only exception is the first "attack" where a sailor is lying in front of the rear projection, where 2 lizards bump into each other standing up, which is supposed to look like they are attacking the sailor). (31.03.2012)