a.k.a. King Dong / Supersimian XXX
company: Hendriethfilm Ltd.
year: 1985
runtime: 57′ / 33′
country: United States
director: Yancey Hendrieth
cast: Crystal Holland, Chaz St. Peters,
Dee Hendrieth, Felicia Fox, Mikhael
Visit the official website or
order the family-friendly edit of
this film from Amazon.com
Young Anna [Crystal Holland] has issues with her mother. Big issues. When the recently divorced matriarch announces her intentions to take an extended trip to the Mediterranean, sans her daughter, Anna decides to take a trip of her own – sailing into the uncharted waters of the South Pacific. Left at the helm for a few seconds while the boat’s owner Alex [St. Peters] goes below deck to fetch their horny co-travelers to relieve them for the night, Anna promptly smashes the vessel into a battleship. The next morning finds Alex and Anna stranded on an island populated by prehistoric monsters, and worse . . .
The two run afoul of a cannibal tribe and, in their flight from danger, wind up in the clutches of a population of Amazons. Alex finds himself locked up for dinosaur food while Anna is adopted into the tribe. But alas, those pesky cannibals are afoot again! No sooner has Anna stepped into her new Amazonian garb than she is kidnapped and tied to a stake in the cannibal village.
Luckily for Anna, Alex has evaded death and dismemberment at the hands [teeth?] of a Tyrannosaurus thanks to the cunning intervention of his new friend Buddy the Gorilla [played by Hendrieth himself] and his mother, a Kong-sized ape Alex dubs Super Simian. Alex and his cohorts make quick work of the cannibal village, with Super Simian smashing both it and most of its inhabitants to bits. But just as Alex is about to rescue Anna he is speared through the back – Anna faints and, upon awakening, finds herself in a hospital bed with her mother at her side. Confused as to whether her ordeal was real or imagined, Anna nevertheless promises to stay at home from then on, and the credits roll.
This independent production is definitely on the strange side [as I indicated in my earlier article, which was based solely on a viewing of the new family-friendly edit of the film], with a strange history to match. Intended as a fanciful amateur homage to the special effects films of Ray Harryhausen and Willis O’Brien [ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and KING KONG in particular], LOST ON ADVENTURE ISLAND would eventually find itself graced with pornographic sex scenes and marketed briefly on home video as adults-only entertainment under various titles like KING DONG and SUPERSIMIAN XXX.
Writer / director Yancey Hendrieth claims to have had no input in regards to the pornographic material and, having now seen the adults-only cut of the film, I’m still inclined to believe him. While it’s obvious that the original feature had a more mature bent than the revised version he currently sells through outlets like Amazon.com and Filmbaby [Alex and Anna's co-travelers are a rather horny pair, for example, though they never have sex on screen], all of the hardcore sex looks impossibly cheap and suspiciously out of place. One rather lengthy sex scene is actually divided into two parts, with the latter playing earlier in the film than the former. There are two hardcore scenes featuring the main cast – one in which Alex must impregnate three chained Amazons, the other a lesbian trist between Anna and one of her Amazon captors – both of which are filmed on the same sets as the scenes that bookend them. Whoever decided on shooting the adults-only material obviously did so at or around the time the rest of the filmw as produced.
Draggy as it can get during the sexy parts, the pornographic cut of LOST ON ADVENTURE ISLAND definitely bests the newer no-sex version in regards to its editing. In his effort to relieve his picture of all things indecent, Hendrieth succeeded only in making a mess of it. The longer version actually has some dramatic impetus and, regardless of the derivative nature of the story and general lack of talent shared by the entire cast, manages to be mildly entertaining at times. It’s unfortunate that Hendrieth didn’t opt to excise the unnecessary hardcore bits, which do untold damage to the pacing, and just leave the rest of the film as it was.
The only real draw, regardless of which cut you see, is the accomplished [if not entirely successful] special effects production. The three-man technical team of L. B. Carvelo, Keith Finkelstein, and David Dane manage some impressive stop motion shots of a plesiosaur as well as some imaginative layered matte work depicting the more fantastical aspects of the island [the Amazons' palace, a grove of Easter Island-like statues]. There’s also a neat life-sized Super Simian hand, a nod to the uber-expensive hydraulic arms constructed for Dino de Laurentiis super-budgeted KING KONG remake from 1976. The stop motion armature of Super Simian fares worse than the rest, with its animation seeming shoddy in comparison to the rest of what’s on display.
The only official DVD release of LOST ON ADVENTURE ISLAND that is available at present is of Hendrieth’s 33 minute re-cut. It looks about as good as its half-and-half 16mm / SOV mastered-on-VHS origins would indicate – soft and artifacty with unnatural color and iffy contrast. Audio fares about as well, with considerable background hiss noticeable throughout. The authoring is, in a word, pathetic – there were no supplements on the disc I received. The retail price tag is high given the content – around $15 before shipping. Given the issues with the encoding and paltryness of content, it’s impossible for me to recommend a purchase.
I didn’t find either cut of LOST ON ADVENTURE ISLAND to be a particularly appealing affair, the brief special effects moments aside. It is what it is – an amateur effort with amateur talent and amateur production values. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary, but I can’t recommend.
An interesting side-note: The 1991 video-documentary HOLLYWOOD DINOSAURS features the plesiosaur sequence from LOST ON ADVENTURE ISLAND with one noteable alteration – Chaz St. Peters and Crystal Holland have both been replaced with footage of unidentified actors in mismatched locations. Those with keen eyes will notice a blip in the editing, which reveals a few frames of the original cast hastily making their way off the left edge of the frame.
This review is part of the October Monster Mayhem roundtable:
