Reviewed by Helen Chavez
Cast:
Ron Perlman (Frank Brodie), Mark Kiely (Scott Davis), Roxana Zal (Tara Matthews), Guillermo Rios (Eddie Mendoza), Kimberlee Peterson (Kelsey Cunningham), Julian Sedgewick (Kovacs)
Plot Summary:
A private plane carrying the daughter of a rich businessman crash-lands on the uninhabited island of San Miguel off the coast of Mexico, an island regarded by the locals as cursed.
The businessman's Chief of Security, Scott Davis (Mark Kiely) mounts a high-tech mission to rescue the survivors, and in his search to find a guide, comes across Frank Brodie (Ron Perlman), a man who was on the island ten years previously. Davis finds Brodie to be a brooding, reclusive drunk, haunted by his experiences on the island, and Brodie tells Davis that it isn't worth mounting a rescue mission as the survivors will, by now, be dead.
Brodie, however, decides to tag along, bringing along a veritable arsenal of weapons and a fatalistic attitude, ridiculing Davis' plans as naïve. Accompanying them is Tara Matthews (Roxana Zal), a young woman purporting to be a medic, and Davis' second-in-command, Eddie Mendoza (Guillermo Rios), a down-to-earth practical man who very quickly realises Brodie knows what he is doing and is inclined to believe what the man says. Bringing up the rear is Kovacs, the techno-whiz of the group, complete with thermal-recon equipment and a high-tech communications system.
On landing on the island it soon becomes very clear that they are not alone - something is out there watching them, and the trip rapidly descends into a nightmare.
Brodie then informs them of the reason he left the island ten years previously - he was the only man left alive after a disastrous experiment in mutant animal genetics leaves the place infested with creatures that have only one aim in life - and that is to kill …
Frank Brodie (Ron Perlman)
Frank Brodie is a haunted man. For ten years he has lived a reclusive life in a small Mexican village, plagued by nightmares of his experiences on the island of San Miguel. His abode amounts to nothing more than a hovel, full of half-eaten pizzas, dirty clothes, unwashed dishes, and a plethora of fly-papers. There is a clutter of empty tequila bottles and full ashtrays, and he keeps at least two scoped rifles and a knife in plain sight.
Brodie would appear to be an ex-soldier. He wears dog-tags, uses a 'Zippo' lighter, and characteristically rolls his cigarette packet into the sleeve of his tee-shirt. He is certainly old enough to have served in Vietnam in the early 1970s, and his familiarity with weapons points strongly to military training. He has experience of jungle warfare, as becomes apparent when the group arrive on the island, Brodie being well aware of tactical advantages and disadvantages in such a hostile environment.
Morose at the best of times, Brodie is fatalistic and cynical, having little faith in Davis or his team. Tara he is highly suspicious of, and he believes the whole mission is destined to fail. So why has he decided to come along? His whole life has been tainted by his escape from the island ten years previously, and by the screams of the people he left behind - he has returned to face his demons.
Yet he is possessed of a dry humour and sharp wit.
When Tara makes the comment that the genetically-enhanced baboons are developing at an incredible rate and are nearly Neanderthal, Brodie's answer is dry and succinct;
"I'd like to get out of here before they get cable …"