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Released by: Raro Video
Released on: October 7th, 2014.
Director: Monte Hellman
Cast: Everett McGill, Michael Bradford
Year: 1988
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The Movie:
Iguana is an odd duck in Monte Hellman's filmography. A misguided attempt to adapt Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa's novel for cinemas the story is set in the nineteenth century and follows Oberlus (Everett McGill), a man with a severe facial disfigurement. He's had it rough most of his life and has been poorly treated by many of his fellow sailors, particularly by Gamboa (Fabio Testi), a fellow shipmate. When he's had enough, he jumps off the ship and by chance washes up on a deserted tropical island.
Believing himself to be pretty much completely alone, he takes a reprobates stance and declares himself to be against both God and man. Shortly after this, Sebastian (Michael Madsen), the cook from the ship Oberlus just jumped from, also washes up on the same shore, later to be joined by two more men, Dominic (Joseph Culp) and George (Tim Ryan). Oberlus threatens Sebastian with dismemberment if he so much as speaks a single insult and eventually the cook becomes his man-servant. As insanity begins to take hold amongst the men, a beautiful woman named Carmen (Maru Valdivielso) arrives on the island with her beau in tow. This proves to be a bad move as soon after, Oberlus has made her his sex slave. When Oberlus eventually decides to abduct Gamboa to exact his revenge, his reign as mad king soon looks as if it will crumble.
An Italian-American co-production, Iguana is a pretty grim film despite the fact that it makes use of some genuinely impressive and truly beautiful locations, the kind that are actually quite serene to look at. The subject matter, however, contrasts with this scenery in grisly ways as we see Oberlus' rise and fall once he arrives on the island and starts to effectively build himself a kingdom. Once he rebukes God and essentially states that everyone else on Earth is his enemy, he quickly turns to the dark side and proves himself to be just as bad, if not far worse, than those who treated him poorly and set him into such a state to begin with. Once he does, he shows he has no problem beating and executing men as he sees fit or using poor Carmen for whatever kink may enter his increasingly twisted mind.
The film, as stated, is very well shot and it has an impressive atmosphere of dread. The plot moves along at a good pace and it at least attempts to make some interesting points in regards to the merits of revenge and the duality of man, though sometimes those points get muddled and buried in the execution of some of the more exploitative scenes. The acting is pretty uneven though, with various actors gaining and losing accents at random. Many of the characters are also devoid of any real personality. We know why Oberlus is the way he is but don't get enough background information on him to really fully form our opinions while Carmen, very well played by Maru Valdivielso, is set up to be an interesting female character pushing back against the church's insistence she marry who then just sort of winds up falling into the trap she'd be warned of in the first place. She doesn't evolve the way she probably should have. Supporting roles from Testi as well as cameos from Jack Taylor and Michael Madsen are interesting to see but don't wind up amounting to much. There are a lot of good ideas here, interesting ideas, but the way in which they take form leaves too much to be desired for Iguana to work as well as it could and should have.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Iguana debuts on Blu-ray from Raro in VC-1 encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. This transfer isn't as sandblasted as some of Raro's other recent Blu-ray releases and it's closer to Werewolf Woman than to Meet Him And Die but the noise reduction that has plagued those discs is once again very noticeable. As seems to be the trend with Raro releases these days, facial detail continues to be waxy and there are compression artifacts evident throughout the movie. The good news is that the transfer is very clean and shows very little actual print damage. Also, it boasts fairly good color reproduction and decent skin tones - but yeah, it's waxy looking.
The only audio option offered is a DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track in English with optional subtitles provided in English only. No issues with the audio to report outside of a few scenes where the score does bury the dialogue ever so slightly. Typically, however, the films dialogue is clean and clear and the track is properly balanced.
The main extra on the disc is a twenty-minute long video interview with Iguana's director, Monte Hellman. He speaks quite honestly about taking this project on basically for the paycheck before talking about some of the issues that he and the cast ran into shooting on location. He also offers up his thoughts on what works here and what doesn't. Hellman is his typically blunt self and his interviews are always interesting, this one being no exception.
Aside from that we get a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection. Inside the keepcase is a booklet of liner notes that offer a bit of background information on the film and the case itself fits inside a cardboard slipcover.
The Final Word:
Iguana is a very interesting mistake. It's not a total waste of time but neither is it in the upper echelon of Hellman's filmography. The film is very well shot and makes excellent use of its exotic locations, so it works on the level but the story is often misguided and the character development occasionally contradicts itself. Raro's Blu-ray is watchable enough but the transfer is waxy and soft. The interview with Hellman is fun though and diehard fans of his will appreciate this one, if more for curiosity value than anything else.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
