-Grindhouse Fest spotlights the cult gems, sleaze classics, and deranged wonders that defined exploitation cinema’s golden run. Proceed with delight and caution-
Directed by Nico Mastorakis
Written by Nico Mastorakis
Starring:
- Bob Behling as Christopher Lambert (credited as Bob Belling)
- Jane Lyle as Celia Lambert (credited as Jane Ryall)
- Jessica Dublin as Patricia Desmond
- Gerard Gonalons as Foster
- Jannice McConnell as Leslie (credited as Janice McConnel)
- Nikos Tsachiridis as Shepherd
Rating: 
An exhausting, never-ending buffet of human depravity—and precious little else. There’s sexual violence woven into a story, and then there’s just sexual violence flapping around without one, and Island of Death proudly chooses the latter. Mastorakis turns in an unsympathetic slab of Greek gutter satire: straight-up torture porn masquerading as a movie. The film’s tastelessness hits like rancid fumes even when filtered through its own winking “comedy.” Sure, it tries to out-sleaze its American cousins—sadistic, sun-blasted, feral—but it plays more like a grotesque sideshow than anything truly terrifying. That berserk, absurdist tone puts every assault on a self-conscious stage, but the supposed humor never lands. What’s left is a pointless provocation, a sweaty carnival of zoophilia, exhibitionism, incest, sadism, murder, and every other deranged kink thrown in just to see if you’ll blink.
Shot amid the postcard beauty of Mykonos, Mastorakis’ grubby Video Nasty follows a British couple—Christopher (Robert Behling) and Celia (Jane Lyle)—who invade the island’s sun-washed calm with their own brand of sanctimonious depravity. Christopher struts around like a self-appointed inquisitor, with Celia as his willing accomplice in these moral kangaroo courts. If the film ever brushes against thoughtfulness, it’s in the absurdity of its premise: this man is an immoral moralist, a walking contradiction whose crusade reeks of hypocrisy. Maybe Mastorakis means it as commentary on exploitation’s twisted ethics, but the muck eclipses the message, and the amateurish showmanship outshines any momentary competence. What’s left offers nothing to admire and plenty you’d like to erase. By the time the film staggers into its weird karmic finale—maybe the first exploitation flick to imagine itself as a cautionary tale—you realize the crew spent so much energy cramming in gore and sleaze that they forgot to build an actual story.
