"Monster Island" (2024) [original title "Orang Ikan"]

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s Monster Island (AKA Orang Ikan), by writer/director Mike Wiluan.

Synopsis

Set in the Pacific, 1942. A Japanese soldier and a British prisoner of war are stranded on a deserted island, hunted by a deadly creature. Two mortal enemies must come together to survive the unknown.

The Good

Joseph: An aquatic creature feature boasting a great looking practical monster suit? Survival thriller elements? Two soldiers on the opposite side of WWII having to bond together to fight the ferocious beast? All this in one well-done movie? In the immortal words of Bon Scott talking to the audience during “The Jack” on AC/DC’s live If You Want Blood You’ve Got It album, “Give it to me! Give it to me! I want someone to give it to me!” Thankfully, writer/director Mike Wiluan and his cast and crew do just that with Monster Island.

Dean Fujioka and Callum Woodhouse are both excellent in roles and performances far weightier than many creature feature devotees might expect. The circumstances they go through as WWII soldiers — one Japanese soldier labeled a traitor and the other an Allied POW, both chained together and tortured on a Japanese warship — are also no joke, from miraculously escaping that boat as it is attacked to dealing with alligators and human dangers on the tiny island they wind up on. And then there is Orang Ikan, the vicious monster that is a loving homage to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The design is a man in a monster suit, and close-ups of the suit look great in grand old-school fashion.

Mike: Monster Island offers a vintage creature-feature experience with low fat and high thrills. At just over 83 minutes, it wastes no time: two WWII soldiers, Saito (Fujioka) and British POW Bronson (Woodhouse), find themselves chained together, shipwrecked on a desolate Pacific island, and stalked by a fierce mythical creature known as the Orang Ikan.

Mike Wiluan's direction draws on legendary influences like Creature from the Black Lagoon, Predator, and Enemy Mine, resulting in a film that boldly wears its inspirations while forging its own path.

The creature design is tactile and scary, rejecting cheap CGI in favor of rubber-suit appeal, nonetheless shocking with razor-sharp teeth and violent kills.

Even with scant dialogue and a language barrier, the two characters convey a sense of developing trust and emotional depth. The pacing is quick, with one death-defying scenario after another, making this a pleasant popcorn trip for horror and monster enthusiasts.

The Bad

Joseph: Although Monster Island remains entertaining and interesting throughout, there is a lot of wandering and waiting around during the second act. Also, designing the Orang Ikan suit with a color that looks quite similar to human skin on its neck seemed an odd choice to me, as twice I tried to determine if it was suit-actor Alan Maxson’s neck or actually the monster’s coloring, momentarily taking me out of the movie.

Mike: On the negative side, the character development is fairly limited. We learn very little about why Saito is labeled a traitor or who Bronson truly is until the very end, and the most of the screen time is spent escaping from or fighting the creature rather than fleshing out backgrounds.

Its worst sin, however, is that things become a touch slow in the second act, dragging the film down slightly. It's not a deal breaker, but it may cause you to look at the clock, which, in my book, is a bad thing.

The Verdict

Joseph: Monster Island’s direction, performances, themes, story, and commitment to seriousness place it far above the norm for average monster movies. It pays respect to B-movie creature features, and is a slick, captivating work that is a strong contender for my list of top 10 horror films of 2025.

Mike: Monster Island is a fast-paced tribute to classic creature flicks, with practical effects, violent gore, and two stranded foes who must work together for survival. Fans of classic monster movies will enjoy this lean, gory, and fun escapist creature flick. Stream it if you want vintage monster thrills with little filler.