Bikini Island

For the 15th anniversary issue of "Swimwear Illustrated" magazine the art department auditions a collection of jiggly swimsuit models. From this meat market they select five lissome bimbos to travel to a nearby tropical isle for a photo spread. The model who makes the cover will get $100,000. At the island, however, the girls and the pictorial crew begin to vanish one by one; they're the victims of a murderous bikini girl who plots to win via the process of elimination.

Movie bottom-crawlers like Fred Olen Ray and the Troma troupe have proven that if humankind must endure this sort of junk, it can at least be sauced with outrageous camp and cult comedy. Director Anthony Markes knew this when he produced INVISIBLE MANIAC, a 1990 sleazefest made somewhat bearable by gonzo humor. BIKINI ISLAND features Terry Miller in minstrel-show makeup as a scowling quasi-Arab stereotype named Frab (spell it backwards), but aside from that this garbage is played straight, right up to the freeze-frame "message" ending. The poor acting, script, music and camerawork come straight out of the FRIDAY THE 13TH-spawned slasher craze, with belated, moderate gore. It's all as much fun as a ruptured silicone breast implant. For voyeurs the females display their assets in various poses and contortions, although actual nudity is brief. The production was filmed not on an island but in mainland Santa Barbara and Malibu, California. (Profanity, adult situations, nudity.) leave a comment