Frankenstein Island...quickly, what vision does that title conjure up? A remote island, a storm, a castle, eerie surf music, a monster in a Hawaiian print shirt? Unfortunately this film offers none of the above, but not to worry, just about everything else is included in this Jerry Warren monsterpiece.

Yep, we got your bulk stock. Man do we got bulk stock, any particular bulk stock Prof. Tread? You ask. Oh, July 4th balloon race style bulk stock. Now balloons ain't all that bad and balloon race's are probably about the most fun you can have in one but to open a movie about Frankenstein and his island? Well, Mr. Warren is on to something all right and through the use of poorly recorded voice-over we get a clue, it seems there's been a tornado of sorts, over the ocean and that tornado has ripped up the balloon belonging to out protagonists, no doubt.

And so it begins. 4 guys and a dog, Melvin, have made it to Frankenstein Island, Melvin even gets a credit as does, drum roll please, Great Fucking American, John Carradine. Jerry Warren had worked with John on The Incredible Petrified World, probably the best film in the Warren catalog. Warren managed to cull 200 feet of Carradine saying "Power, Power, Power, etc." Something mastermind Fred Olen Ray would be smart enough to do himself before the Grand Master of B-moviedome went to meet Baby Jesus. So there you go, John Carradine gets star billing. WhyiIn 1981 would Jerry Warren believe that John Carradine would sell this thing, who knows? My guess, Jerry Warren probably wasn't reading the trades. But Jerry Warren's knack for not keeping up with what Hollywood was doing brings paydirt to the lucky who fear to tread on Frankenstein Island. Other B-movie notables in this jewel include: Robert (Hideous Sun Demon) Clarke, Cameron (The Toolbox Murders, Blood and Black Lace) Mitchell, Steve (Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Donovan's Brain) Brodie and many members of Warren's ensemble from his past efforts...Warren is best known because of his incredible Wild, Wild World of Batwoman, why, well because MST3K decided to skewer that ultra low budget wonder. Warren waited almost 20 years before he decided his swan song had to be Frankenstein Island. Lucky us.

The plot goes a little like this...Our four yuks are on the island, after the dog takes a leak, they encounter beautiful, leopard print wearing, Jungle Women, well first, they encounter a Jungle Woman, who is strung up kind of like a "human hammock," odd, well, I think so, you would probably think so, but to these guys...no big deal. It's bidness as usual as the come upon a wirl relaxing between to trees. So then the rest of the Jungle Gals show up. There is some Jungle Gal dancing, some Jungle Gal cavorting, and my favorite, some Jungle Gal Skull Bong Hitting. Yep, there is.

On with the plot, a couple guys named Jocko and Angus show up, laughing their asses off about something, I mean seriously laughing, I mean haw, haw, haw, snort, haw, haw, type shit and convince the guys to leave the beautiful Jungle Women and come look at something with them. Of course, they leave, who wouldn't, beautiful Jungle Women's dancing around nude, smoking wacky weed, handling snakes (wink, wink), oh, I'm out of there. I wonder what these two are laughing about!

So they run into Cameron Mitchell, who's been there for 17 years. Cameron gets the BIG diatribe, obviously before falling into a drunken stupor and then we are off to meet Von Helsing and his wife who is a direct descendent of Dr. Frankenstein (Carradine). Von Helsing is 200 years old, needs Jungle Girl blood, goat blood, and even Cameron Mitchell blood (100 Proof no doubt) to keep living the good life. You know the good life the one where you are oin a roll-a-way bed shoved over in the corner of a lab. Convinced you have to see this yet...you damened well should be!

More talk of Brains, Blood, Power, Goats, and more Manical Laughing until you think you are going to fucking keel over when bam, boom the actual galddamned Frankenstein monster makes an appearance. Looking like a slightly less convincing but no less menacing Karloff monster, walking with the "outta the way, outta the way" patent pending Frankenstein arm motioning, he gets to work, causing the zomibes on the island who are decked out in toboggans and hiding behind those Foster Grants to go on a crazed walk, that's right I said, walk, through the lab. A Civil War machine gun, a child's Halloween Devil Pitchfork, some fake vampire teeth and a spinning electronic cigar box all get screen time durng this climatic...uh...fight sequence.

Our heroes scurry away and we end up with a ending that any of us could have written at age 10 after an epsidoe of Kookla, Fran and Ollie and some Archways. I won't give it away but pay offs are many and if you are tired of re-watching Ed Wood's triumphs in low-brow entertainment (believe me when I say, if you believe Ed Wood is the worst director ever, you are a misinformed, rank amateur) give Mr. Warren's final effort a try and remember this thing hit the streets in 1982, it might have been the last of its kind, seriously. Tragically Warren died of cancer and many of the actors never even got paid for their roles in Frankenstein Island. Robert Clarke remembers Warren phoning him up to bring make-up with him for the other actors during the shoot and describes Warren as "a screaming idiot" on the set. Clarke once asked "how do you expect to get performances out of people, when you can't calm down and speak normally." I think we know the answer, he didn't.

Never one to fall back on the worn "so bad it is good" copout, I will simply say, if you like to waste moments of your life chuckling at movie magic that is looking for the mark and missing it not slightly, but by a country mile. Find this, watch it, base a cook-out or dinner party on the fact you will be showing it. You might be surprised to find you have instantly won marks for your obvious good taste and utter film flamboyance, or you are murdered, your corpse sodomized and ultimately you end up in a 55 gallon drum in a rented storage unit in Muddy Ford, Kentucky...either way you are/were a hit.

ZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!

Outta the way, outta the way. Frankenstein arrives with some zombies!