Die Insel der Ungeheuer

A monster-movie with a theme and special effects that seem to have been stuck in the 1950s. This is the story of a group of people trapped somewhere in the mountains fighting an army of mutated giant rats, where Gordon once again threw in a bunch of visual effects of variable quality like incredibly awkward translucent giant wasps, added larger-than-life rat models, or had rodents running between models of all sorts, from a caravan to a house, to achieve an optical illusion. Over the years, Gordon got a lot better at depicting explicit violence, so he spares no blood. The rats are actually killed "in natura" until pieces of their bodies fly off, which may not be to the liking of many viewers, and I am not surprised to see this film included in Premiere's equivalent of the 50 most obscure films in American cinema. The final showdown is one of the most awkward I've ever seen in a movie, and the final twist is outrageously funny. The fans of unadulterated trash movies will be in a bliss. (11.01.2009)