'Monster Island' – The Creature From the WWII Lagoon

'Monster Island' – The Creature from the WWII Lagoon

The Creature from the Black Lagoon has some company. “Monster Island” features a sea creature who bears a striking resemblance to that beast from ’50s era cinema. It’s mean, green and scaly, and you don’t want to meet it on a beach retreat. Two WWII soldiers get up close and personal wth the beast in this intermittently engaging romp. The problem? The film isn’t sure what it wants to be from one scene to the next. A text crawl explains how Japan…

Sea Creature in Paradise

Monster Island by Hope Madden Thanks in part to the success of Dan Trachtenberg’s 2022 Prey, period piece creature features have come into vogue. Nice! Writer/director Mike Wilaun’s Monster Island (originally titled Orang Ikan) is the latest. In a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” two men—a Japanese traitor (Dean Fujioka) and a British POW (Callum Woodhouse)—are shipwrecked on an island in the Pacific. That chain that binds them toge…

Review: MONSTER ISLAND is a Practical Effects Showcase with Little Else

It’s a shame. Monster Island sounds rad on paper. A little Kong: Skull Island, a dash of Creature From The … Tropical Pacific Island Lagoon (an Asylum knockoff in the making). Mike Wiluan writes and directs a World War II creature feature that turns enemies into allies, but it’s never an impressive culmination of influences. It’s a bit like The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot—grabby concept, but with an underwhelming follow-through. A…