The WTF Film of the Week!

"I'm the Mary and you're the Rhoda."

Okay, so a few weeks ago, I posted a trailer for some insane looking possible Beastiality softcore porn-fest titled, Tanya's Island from glorious 1980 and featuring the pre-crack addicted, fuller-bodied naked and talking talents of Vanity as Tanya. You know, that Vanity. Except in the film she is credited as "D.D. Winters" which is also NOT her real name, it's actually Katrina Matthews which sounds neither like vagina or a nick name for your penis.  Though the time I posted the trailer, I swore to never watch the film, let alone post a review, I eventually changed my mind.  Listen, I knew this thing had to be a piece of shit and there was a very real chance it was going to be disturbing on several levels, but come on!  It looked so ridiculous that macabre curiosity of viewing those shark attacks and old lady vs. train collisions on those banned from television videos set in.  What the fuck could this film possibly be about?  Is there just constant nudity and sex for the full hour and a half and most importantly and also most disturbing, is there actually a film in existence that involves an ape man ape raping 1980's Vanity???  What in 80's fuckery??  It just seemed like a bad punchline to a hackey joke.  I had to know!  Trailer below, NSFW! 

Tanya's Island brought to you by Tanya's landing strip.

So before you get all excited about renting this turd and rounding up a group of shitty movie loving friends, some cheese puffs and a 12 pack, I bring bad news Enemaniacs.  This film is NOT WATCHABLE!  It starts out entertainingly cheesy enough, with a fully-naked bare bushed Vanity projected onto the island background of the opening credits, writhing around and faking an orgasm or something.  Already I decide, this turd totally has B-movie potential.  Then, flash forward to, well, Vanity Tanya jogging along the busy streets of some city for a very long time, completely clothed head to toe.  There are a lot of close ups of her face while she jogs.  A lot.

Then, all of sudden we're thrown back and forth between scenes of her filming some possible music video in a train with guys dressed in racially insensitive African tribal garb, shots of the the stop motion animated gorilla in scenes from 1949's Mighty Joe Young and Tanya STILL jogging.  It gets even more disjointed from there.  There is no explanation who any of the characters are or where they are.  During the shots filmed in the dinner train, a woman approaches Tanya and makes some rambling comment about Tanya's "career."  Okay, so I guess she's a pop singer?  Then Tanya is suddenly knocking on the door of some apartment and is greeted angrily by a bearded guy.  The guy tells her to leave and she asks to come in.  He tells her he never wants to see her again and she continues to pathetically beg to stay.  This is followed by her forcing her way into the apartment where he promptly get's creepily aggressive with her and throws her around all the while shouting that he doesn't want her.  Yeah.  She says some more passive pathetic things involving her creepy co-dependence to this guy and then, suddenly the scene cuts to her in another apartment alone.  This film shits all over segues.   Once in another apartment, which I assume is her own, Tanya hears a grunting noise which she follows in, oh, here we go SLOW MOTION because this whole time I was thinking to myself, Jesus, this plot is moving along so quickly with so much going on, if only they'd slow it down for a bit!  After probably 10 minutes of Tanya walking to a door, she opens it and suddenly, that's right, is on some deserted island.

Wait, how are they boning if his flaccid penis is dangling? Ghost boner?

Of course, there is no explanation as to whether this is a time warp, flash back or dream sequence.  She's just suddenly in a different more revealing outfit, riding a white horse and talking to the asshole abusive ex-boyfriend, who she has apparently now re-boyfriended.  We learn that this bearded guy is named Lobo, is still an aggressive asshole and is a surrealist painter.  Tanya and Lobo frolic and fuck around the island and act as if they've lived there together all their lives.  At some point when Tanya is picking fruit in the jungle, she thinks she sees something in the trees.  She is frightened and runs to Lobo, who of course mocks her for being a pussy instead of comforts her in anyway because that's what artists do.  Tanya decides to explore the island on her own to find if they are truly alone and eventually comes upon a deserted cave housing a creepy ape man creature who she secretly be-friends and names him Blue because of his blue eyes.  She begins sneaking away each day to swim naked in Blue's cave while he watches her and chews a stick.  No, seriously, that's what they do.  She keeps this friendship from her asshole boyfriend for undisclosed reasons, but I assume it's because she doesn't want to mix their friends circles in case they break up.  Blue starts stalking Tanya and Lobo's tent at night which culminates in a confrontation between Lobo and Blue when Blue rips up one of Lobo's ape paintings, dick.  Lobo ends up following Tanya into the jungle one day and discovers who naked swimming/stick eating friendship with Blue.  Naturally, he's pissed.  He's a sensitive guy.  Instead of confronting Tanya then and there, he waits for her back at the tent so when he can ask her where she was, catch her in a lie and then rip off her top and forcibly finger her.  This is where the movie takes a turn for the seriously rapey and fucked up.  Which should have made it more entertaining, but it doesn't. 

Blue reflects on whether he should have worn a condom.

 The rest of the film involves a man vs. beast struggle between Lobo and Blue for Tanya's affections which involves Lobo dressing up as some stereotype of an Afican tribal member and building a bamboo prison to keep Tanya in and Blue out.  Oh yeah and he also feels the need to rape her in front of Blue's ape face.  Blue eventually frees Tanya from the prison after the rape only to, you guessed it, rape her himself.  That's right, this movie has a Vanity double dipping rape scene and no, it is not worth watching just for this WTF moment.  I promise you.


Besides numbing your brain on lack of dialogue and plot alone, if you have any normal level of confidence, Tanya's insistence on returning to Lobo after he treats her like shit and forcibly fists her at some point is excruciatingly obnoxious.  She even goes to him for comfort when Blue is attacking the bamboo cage post Lobo raping her.  I'm not sure if the director/writer intended this film to be some sort of metaphor about male aggression and sexuality, a dialogue about misogyny or even a documentary about the beginnings of AIDS, but even if that was the intention, Vanity's boobies and bush cannot save this dull, boring and frustratingly ridiculous excuse for an erotic drama.  I've seen episodes of Red Shoe Diaries better than this and the people in it have flaccid penis fake sex were uglier!  If the only pay off of this movie is a slow motion, blue filtered Gary Busey-looking ape suit raping a post-Princed/Loboed Vanity, I say get a better gimmick and preferably one that is more legal.

Turns out, Jesus does not do a body good.

In case anyone wonders, Vanity aka Katrina Matthews, left the spotlight in the 80's after almost losing both her kidneys to a crack cocaine addiction and has since become an Evangelical Christian preacher.  I know most people would credit the crack for this career move, but I really have to blame Tanya's Island because when you think about it, I'm pretty sure making this shit storm turned her onto crack in this first place.  R.I.P Vanity (1980's something - 1980's something).