Overview: Five men and two women, who survive an airplane crash, discover that they may be the only survivors of a world disaster. The question arises: whether the human race can survive, or will man kind destroy itself.

Cult Epics presents The Last Island, a futuristic drama featuring Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Shelagh McLeod, Kenneth Colley (The Empire Strikes Back) and British stalwart Patricia Hayes (Willow). The third film in a trilogy of Marleen Gorris, produced by Laurens Geels and Dick Maas (Amsterdamned, The Lift).

Blu-ray Verdict: This is, and via a multitude of ways, a disturbing and potentially controversial film and thus one I had fully expected to hear back the next day from my friends who watched it with me, in some much elevated manners.

And yet, I didn’t, which I still find bewildering, but I shall myself continue onward regardless. Stories about shipwrecked survivors on tropical islands tend to be presented either as romantic idylls (sea, sun and scantily clad young people, much like The Blue Lagoon, for example), or perhaps even as an imaginative dystopi, in which the island becomes a Petri dish for the darkest aspects of the human psyche to seethe in (much like, for example, The Lord of the Flies).

Indeed, sometimes man comes out on top, as in the films Hell in the Pacific, or the excellent Cast Away, who both deal with overcoming the odds and escaping the island prison, but all the actors in those films were men. Throw a woman into the equation and everything changes.

Ergo, director Marleen Gorris’ third film The Last Island gives an unadulterated feminist take on the cast away motive in which the evil inherent in men gets the better of their desire to escape the island.

Well made and with strong characters along with a fascinating plot line, The Last Island is a highly entertaining process to watch, but not one you can remain neutral towards, trust me. [PN]

Special Features:
New 2K HD Transfer (from original 35mm print) & Restoration
Original LPCM 2.0 Stereo track
New DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo track
Audio Introduction by Dick Maas
Audio Commentary by Film Scholar Peter Verstraten
Behind-the-Scenes of The Last Island
Interview with Politica Columnist Annemarie Grewel (Cinema 3, 1990)
Original Theatrical Trailer
Promotional Gallery
Reversible artwork