In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Battle of Blood Island (1960) ** 1/2 (out of 4)American GI's Moe (Richard Devon) and Ken (Ron Gans) are the only survivors of their platoon and they wash up on an island held by the Japanese. Ken has been left crippled so it's up to Moe to do everything from finding food and shelter to making sure the bad guys don't hear them. As the two stay on the island long their anger towards each other grows.BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND had Roger Corman as Executive Producer so that should tell you what to expect. The film was obviously working on a very low-budget and it was meant to be the second of a double feature with of course the first movie being of a bigger budget. With all of that in mind, I found the film to be entertaining for what it was but there are no questions that it did feature some flaws.I think the best thing for the film was the story by Joel M. Rapp, which he adapted from a short story by Philip Roth. I thought Rapp was very smart with the screenplay since he was working with very little money. This meant you couldn't stage large action scenes but instead everything had to be done on a small scale. I liked the way the story developed and I'd argue that the character development was good as well. Both Devon and Gans were good in their role and this added to the entertainment value as well.This here was one of a number of films that Corman shot in Puerto Rico and the locations certainly helped the film. With the low-budget that means there aren't any large action scenes or anything like that so one shouldn't go into this expecting anything like that. The film ran a short 63-minutes and even at that there were some moments that dragged. With that said, BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND was a decent little picture.

I definitely liked this film more than the other reviewers. Yeah, the battle at the beginning was badly staged and kind of goofy. If the marines fought anything like those guys we would have never won any war period. Afterwards though I really enjoyed what essentially became a tale of survival on a deserted island. Think Castaway here. One of the soldiers is badly injured and depends on the other for almost every single thing he needs. This puts a lot of stress on Moe who is pretty darn high strung anyhow. Basically you have one physically incomplete person and one mentally incomplete person somehow struggling through all their issues while wondering if they're ever gonna see civilization again or simply die in the middle of nowhere.This is more of a psychological film as opposed to the typical war film. Yeah, there is lots of fighting and killing but what happens internally to the two stranded GIs is what the movie is all about. I found that it kept my interest very well indeed and wish I could have given it a 7 and a half. The actor playing Moe was really good and his face is pretty recognizable. He played lots of heavies and gangsters back in the sixties.

Poor combat scenes, a platoon of guys attacking an entire island, defended by less than 20 guys, in rubber boats (the attacking guys, not the defending guys). Actually they apparently only had one rubber boat. You never see two at the same time but at least they saved like ten bucks. At first the Japs are behind rocks, then after the battle we find that it was actually an open beach. Americans shot down while running back and forth in front of Japanese, like ducks in a shooting gallery. One survivor was supposed to have caught a mortar frag in the back but there wasn't a single explosion. Some of the Japs have M-1s (incorrect) some have bolt action rifles (correct). Some have bolt action rifles that fire multiple times without being cycled (incorrect).But enough about the first two minutes of this movie. The movie itself was actually not too bad as a tale of survival. Follow the antics of the two survivors of a failed attack on a small Pacific island as they try to survive on a slightly enemy held island. They have to off the occasional Jap but it's mostly about rounding up something to eat and keeping the whiny guy quiet. Soon enough our intrepid heroes decide the island is too crowded and want to create some Lebensraum by doing unto the enemy before the enemy can do unto them, with a bunch of grenades. Alas, before any excitement can break out or anything can explode the Japanese guys kill themselves.Now there's even less excitement left in this movie and we settle into a dull grind of listening to the whiny guy say "Moe" over and over and trying to figure out what's in that delicious soup Moe makes.Now as soon as I saw a goat had mysteriously appeared on the island I had the ending written and there was going be one explosion in this movie, even if it was stock footage. But no, they went with the least interesting ending they could have used. Oh well.4/10

This film and "Shell Shock" have been packaged together by Something Weird Video. Both are ultra-low budget WWII films that were made during the post-war period. However, unlike the wretched and extremely boring "Shell Shock", "Battle of Blood Island" manages to be entertaining despite its many shortcomings.The biggest problem with the film is probably the title. There really isn't any battle--at least not that you'll see in this action-less action picture. When the story begins, a small group of US Marines have already been killed as they were trying to take this small Pacific island (though the film was actually made in Puerto Rico). Two manage to survive...but one just barely. The healthy guy saves the wounded one and they hide from the tiny occupying Japanese force through the first half of the film. Then, a very odd thing happens. When the two soldiers have mustered up the nerve to attack the dozen or so occupants, just before they do so, the Japanese soldiers obligingly kill themselves--apparently they just found out they lost the war and decided to commit mass suicide. Now the two men realize that although they will indeed survive, perhaps no one will ever come to rescue them--after all, the island is small and the Americans probably assumed the entire unit was wiped out in the earlier attack. This is a pretty novel idea and without a working radio, I am sure there must been a few cases like this at the end of the war.The relationship between the two men makes up an interesting second half of the film. I especially was intrigued by what I thought was a gay subtext late in the film when the one healthy guy did NOT try to communicate with the American ships passing by--making you wonder if he really liked the idea of spending the rest of his life with the other man! But, sadly, the film didn't really follow up on this....making you wonder WHY the healthy guy didn't try to signal the ship. A gay love interest seems to be the only answer. But, despite this, the film still is different and pretty well acted.By the way, the ending was only okay. I predicted that the island would be Bikiki or some other island used for nuclear testing because goats and other livestock were released on the islands to see the effects of the bomb on them (that's kind of sad, huh?). But, I think they missed their chance for a great twist ending. When the healthy guy was finally discovered by the soldiers who were rounding up the goats and pigs, wouldn't have been wild if at that point it turned out there really WAS only one survivor on the island and the sick guy had died long before and was only now a figment of the other man's imagination? This "Twilight Zone" ending would have improved the film considerably--especially since the ending otherwise didn't make complete sense. Still, it's well worth a look.By the way, the film really blew it with the toucan. This bird lives ONLY around the Caribbean as well as Central and South America--not the Pacific. And, for that matter, they cannot talk like a parrot of mynha bird. Oops.