When someone brings up the Universal Monsters, I always like to ask: Who do you think of first? Is it the suave bloodsucker, Dracula, cape dramatically billowing as he monologues about the night? Or maybe Frankenstein’s Monster, misunderstood and stitched together like a Halloween arts and crafts project gone rogue? There’s also the tragic Wolfman, forever in need of a full-body shaving, the invisible nudist himself (Invisible Man) and The Mummy — who, let’s be honest, mostly just shuffles around like he’s late for a nap.
But you know who never gets brought up? The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I’ve asked horror fans, casual moviegoers, even people at Halloween stores, and not once has anyone said, “Oh yeah, that fish guy with the gills, he was my fave!”
Why is that? Did Gill-Man fail the public relations campaign? Did he not show up to the group photo shoot? Did someone flush his legacy down the Universal backlot lagoon? The poor guy just wants to be remembered too — preferably not just for being the monster most likely to get caught in the plastic ring that goes around your 6-pack of Coca-Cola.
So, imagine my surprise when Creature from the Black Lagoon’s long-forgotten cousin finally got some overdue respect in Monster Island, a 2025 creature feature splashing its way onto Shudder courtesy of writer-director Mike Wiluan. It’s like someone finally opened the vault and said, “Hey, remember aquatic monsters that aren’t sharks? Let’s give them a whole island, crank up the chaos to 11, and throw in some homage to Saturday matinee madness while we’re at it.”
And you know what? It kinda works. Emphasis on kinda.
Set during World War II, Monster Island (originally titled Orang Ikan) follows Japanese soldier Saito (Dean Fujioka) and British POW Bronson (Callum Woodhouse), who wind up stranded on a remote island after their transport ship takes an ill-timed dive. With no rescue in sight and trust in short supply, the two enemies are forced into an uneasy alliance.
But survival quickly becomes more complicated when they realize the island isn’t empty — something else is there with them. Something relentless. Something scaly. Something played by Alan Maxson that apparently didn’t get the memo about the island being uninhabited.
Director Mike Wiluan deserves credit for how he handles the creature design in Monster Island. Rather than going full generic fish-monster, he leans into the lesser-known mythology of the Orang Ikan, a Southeast Asian cryptid that’s basically what you’d get if the Gill-Man had a cousin who grew up in the tropics and maybe ate a few sailors for lunch. It’s a smart move, blending regional folklore with visual nods to Universal’s classic creature design.
You’ve got the scales, the claws, the menacing gills — it all feels familiar, but with just enough of a twist to make it feel fresh.
In my very serious and definitely academic cryptid research (read: internet rabbit hole at 2 p.m. just before having to leave on a 3-hour drive), I discovered that the Orang Ikan is said to be a humanoid sea creature spotted by Japanese soldiers in Indonesia during World War II. So yes, Wiluan didn’t just pull this monster out of a prop bin, he dug into a bit of cryptid lore that, while obscure, adds a cool layer of mystery. Think Bigfoot or the Yeti, but wetter, angrier and with better underwater cardio.
The creature design isn’t the only element in Monster Island that feels like it swam in from other monster flicks. The setup of two enemy soldiers — one Japanese, one British — being forced to work together on a remote island echoes the opening sequence of Kong: Skull Island, where a similar showdown is rudely interrupted by a massive third party (in that case, a giant ape; here, a fishy cryptid with an anger-management issues). And if the snarling, guttural clicks of the Orang Ikan sound familiar, it’s probably because they’re practically lifted from the Predator playbook — so much so that I half-expected the creature to start mimicking voices and collecting skulls.
Wiluan clearly wears his influences on his sleeve, and while the homage occasionally teeters into imitation, it’s all done with enough sincerity and flair that genre fans will likely appreciate the nods more than nitpick the resemblances.
Still, for all its pulpy charm and cryptid creativity, Monster Island is far from a great film. As much as I wanted to root for it, the limitations start showing pretty quickly — chief among them being the creature itself. The suit, while ambitious in concept, looks unmistakably like a guy in a rubber costume, the kind you’d see lurking around a theme park attraction or starring in a 1960s tokusatsu show. There’s also the issue of scale.
For a film set on an entire mysterious island, the stakes feel surprisingly small. We get one monster. One. It’s hard to feel like our stranded duo is facing overwhelming odds when they’re basically playing hide-and-seek with a single fishman. The movie flirts with the idea of a broader ecosystem — there’s even an alligator cameo — but instead of ramping up the danger, it just leaves you wishing there were more. More creatures. More surprises. More anything to keep the tension simmering.
As it stands, the island ends up feeling oddly empty, like someone forgot to finish populating the danger zones in a horror video game. It makes for a mostly boring film with only a few minutes of highlights.
Monster Island earns a meager two out of five stars. While there’s some fun to be had in its creature-feature throwback vibes and the clever nod to Southeast Asian folklore with the Orang Ikan, the film never fully rises above its B-movie roots — and not in the charming, cult-classic way. The creature design is ambitious but hokey, the plot feels stretched thin and the island itself, despite being ripe for survival-horror chaos, ends up strangely underpopulated. It borrows liberally from better monster movies (Kong: Skull Island, Predator, even the Universal classics) but never manages to remix those elements into something truly memorable.
Still, I can’t fully hate on a movie that tries to give some spotlight to the forgotten fishman of the Universal Monsters. It’s like someone finally remembered The Creature from the Black Lagoon and handed him a microbudget and a fog machine.
If you’re in the mood for rubber-suit nostalgia and creature grunts that sound suspiciously familiar, Monster Island might scratch that oddly specific itch. Just don’t expect it to swim in the same league as its inspirations.