Savage Island (1985)

Rating: *
Review Date: 3/29/10
Cast: Ajita Wilson, Linda Blair

Footage from two different Italian "women in prison" films ("Hotel Paradise" and "Escape From Hell") is spliced together and bookended by irrelevant scenes featuring a bitchy gun-toting Linda Blair. As Blair prepares to execute a wealthy gem dealer, she recounts her tale of misery as a slave in a South American prison. Except that she never shows up in any of her own flashbacks... Several weeks/months/years earlier, a girl named Maria infiltrated the prison camp with a group of jewel thieves disguised as prison guards. After enduring much hardship, they all decide to escape by blowing the place up with dynamite. None of it makes much sense and the continuity is considerably off, as characters who already died show up again later in the film. The production values are decent enough, but the film is still barely watchable. The exploitation angle allows for the requisite shower scenes, rape scenes, and nude wrestling scenes. There's also a recurring snake theme. The film opens with a pointless scene of a girl buried up to her neck in the sand, who is then killed by a passing snake. Apparently, South American snakes love to indiscriminately kill helpless women. Later, a guard punishes a female prisoner by threatening to throw a snake in her face. Ack! Not a snake in the face! How horrible! In order to avoid such a terrible fate, she ends up biting the snake's head off. How bizarre.