Being Film #1 for Hooptober 2025
There’s a lot that goes into choosing the first movie in this marathon: do you get the requirements out of the way first? Look at runtimes? Or is it something more ephemeral? I wanted to start with the simple things that made me a fan of the genre as a kid, and that is monsters. Specifically monsters that are practical, man-in-suit creations. And so here we are with the aptly named Monster Island, a small period piece that makes the most of its limited budget, cast and location to craft a fun if slightly underwhelming creature feature.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: The Defiant Ones meets Creature From The Black Lagoon? It’s WWII, and a Japanese hell ship is transporting prisoners when a torpedo attack strands the quiet, mysteriously labeled traitor Saito and the brash British POW Bronson on a seemingly deserted island. Chained together, they quickly band together to stay alive only to discover the island isn’t quite as deserted as it appears. Not only did other survivors make it, but something large, green, and evil is stalking around the lakes and jungles. And it’s hungry. Man in suit? You bet, but the legend of the Orang Ikan (“Fish Man” in Malay and Indonesian folklore) looms larger than life with a bloodthirsty appetite the 50s gill man certainly didn’t have…
There’s nothing that doesn’t work in Mike Wiluan’s creature feature, but honestly there’s nothing that really makes Monster Island stand out from the herd, either. Working with a small budget, he makes the most by casting two great leads in Dean Fujioka and Callum Woodhouse as Saito and Bronson, who form an instant rapport that works despite the two not sharing a common language. They sell it, and we buy it, as do we the location, an abandoned island complete with older disasters from shipwrecks or – pertinent to the film’s plot – an airplane crash.
Likewise the decision to keep everything largely practical is a huge benefit. The creature owes a massive debt to the 1954 classic, although there’s also a level of Lovecraftian strangeness in the creature’s eyes and hulking frame. During the violent set pieces, Wiluan makes great use of the dark and quick editing to make the violence visceral and impactful without resorting to great gushes of CG blood and gore. It’s (almost) all in camera, and helps to sell the immediacy of what’s happening on screen.
I just wish it were enough to make Monster Island stand out. When things happen in broad daylight it looks a little more ridiculous: after a great sequence where Bronson is sprawled next to the water when a scaly giant appears only to reveal it’s a massive alligator, it’s fantastic; when you have a far off daylight attack between the same alligator and the creature it looks, well…a little silly. Plus I kept finding myself wondering what the monster was doing. We get a sense of its life – there’s a dead mate found in a pit, and the climax involves a gestating egg that is destroyed in one of the cringiest laugh out loud moments in the film – but besides stalking and creatively killing people, I’m not sure what the monster wants. Will it eat them? Is this just defense of territory?
I guess in the end it’s a monster, and monsters are going to do what they do. That’s enough for Monster Island, and I admit I’m looking forward to what Wiluan does next.
Cinema Dual 
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