As a unit of World War II American soldiers makes a daylight landing on the beach of a Pacific island, they are quickly over matched by Japanese troops. They are all killed, except for a pair of survivors, Moe Malamen and Ken. The pair has been left for dead. Moe has faked his death while Ken has been critically wounded, a mortar fragment in his back. Ken is now moaning in the shallow water. Moe puts him over his shoulders and heads into the jungle where they stumble upon a cave in which to hide.In the cave the pair gets acquainted and contemplates their circumstances. Moe then sets out to find food and water and finds the Japanese encampment. Upon Moe's return, he examines Ken's wound and both men realize that Ken's situation is dire. That night Moe goes to the Japanese camp to steal the things necessary to help Ken but is discovered, and must knockout a guard before he can escape with the supplies. But before he leaves, he heads to another tent in the camp and takes a photo from the wall. Back at the tent, Moe operates on Ken with crude tools with the hope that it will work. The following morning, Ken appears to be in better shape and is very thankful for Moe's efforts and guts. Moe counters by saying "Some guts? What kind of guts does it take to stay alive?" Later Moe says "Everything I do for you I do for selfish reasons." A day or two later the men head to the far side of the island to swim and fish in a lagoon but are interrupted by a Japanese guard. The guard discovers one of the GI's shirts, a fight ensues and Moe kills the guard and responds with remorse. Moe buries the body and the pair heads back to the cave where Moe gets drunk to sarcastically "celebrate" his first kill. As the two contemplate the act of killing, Ken attempts to rationalize Moe's killing but Moe will hear none of it. Moe wonders who the Japanese soldier was, what his life was like, and gets drunk. The following morning the two are almost spotted by a Japanese patrol at the front of the cave but remain undiscovered. Moe later heads out to get some fish but is tailed by a Japanese soldier. As Moe approaches the cave Ken sees the Japanese soldier and kills him by throwing his bayonet into the soldier. Moe then heads out to bury the body but is discovered by two more Japanese soldiers and is pinned down with rifle fire. Moe picks up the Japanese soldier's rifle to return fire and kills one of the two soldiers. After running out of bullets, Moe surprises the remaining Japanese soldier and kills the him with a shovel. Upon returning to the cave, Ken continues to console Moe with a line from Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life", "Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret." Feeling brave, Ken suggests a dawn raid on the Japanese camp and Moe agrees to a Sunday morning attack. To there surprise, all the Japanese soldiers are lined up with their leader shouting at them. Then to their astonishment, all the Japanese soldiers shoot themselves. Ken and Moe wonder if the war has come to an end. Sometime later while Moe is burying the squad of dead Japanese soldiers, Ken is attacked by yet another unexpected Japanese soldier and strangles him to death. Moe and Ken move to the camp.After seven months of waiting and bickering, the stress begins to wear on Moe and Ken. A toucan named Uncle Morris becomes a distraction but they wonder if they will ever be found. Indignant at Ken's continued paraplegic condition, they begin to argue more intensely, and the threats and insults begin. Ken grows weary of his existence, his burden. Influenced by Moe's insults, Ken tries to commit suicide but fails. Both men are in utter despair, missing the lives at home in America. Finally on a bright, sunny day, Moe spots a group of three ships off the coast. Moe wonders if they are Allied ships or Japanese. In a moment of uncertainty, he decides they are enemy ships and heads back to Ken. In a moment of irony, Moe tells Ken that there are planes and ships on the other side of the island but Ken doesn't believe it. That night Ken hears something outside their hut. Moe heads outside to see a goat at the edge of the camp. Back in the hut, they wonder where the goat came from and conclude that the goat is a gift from God, from heaven. As they go for a walk, they encounter a herd of goats at the beach and still wonder where they came from. Moe tells a story of war and how the people left over turned over the world to the children who abolished war and turned the whole world into a circus, the Pacific a zoo, an asylum for goats. As Ken consoles Moe, they understand that the goats can't hurt them. The following morning they awake on the beach to find American soldiers tending to the goats and are saved, just in time before the island is used as a nuclear test sight.

Hello. - MOE! - I thought I would review this film, I don't usually, but I feel inspred. - MOE! - The film is quite simple. Two men are the only survivors of a disastrous attack on a Japanese island in WWII. - MOE! -The two men are incompatible yet, they must stick together because they only have each other.The more I think about it, the more is just wrong about the film. - MOE! - One, 10,000 men were sent to the island and only two survive? It looks like there is about twenty Japanese soldiers fighting them off. And anyways, isn't 10,000 men too many for an island so small and insignificant? - MOE - - MOE! - Most of it is just talking, and while the soundtrack makes it sound like a B-horror movie by Ed Wood, and the war suit will neither make it appealing to fans of war movies or talkie dramas, the atmosphere is intense (or mind numbing, you decide). - MOE! - Bottom line is that you will either hate this film or love it.P.S. Could Ken have said MOE! any more than he did in this film? :)

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.

Before you balk at a 7 of 10 rating I'm giving this, it is in proportion to the films budget which is mid 60's drive in movie, indi production, very low money. It is on the 50 Movie Pack Combat Classics collection through Amazon, I highly recommend it for the price of what one or two movies alone go for. If your a Roger Corman fan you will enjoy this movie. I'm not a big fan of Corman's stuff but I keep watching it. I like hopeless situation movies usually post atomic war stuff, and this has a bit of that taste. I found it at first fun to watch seeing the dramatized invasion (you have to use suspension of belief in this movie which I did), but then the situation of two GI's (one wounded and para-pelagic) on an island abandoned with a squad of Japanese was something I never saw before so I got into it. It then turned into a drama of men going insane and of course what would a war movie be without a little racial bigotry thrown in for even more easy drama. I was hoping the ending would turn out different in a bad way, it would have been a very Cormanesque twist like he did in that cave man movie I think titled teenage caveman. Anyway for a really low budget forgotten drive in war flick it's a good one to catch, 7 of 10. It does seem a lot longer then 68 minutes though. Corman is uncredited as a soldier in this one as well so you see some versions packaged with his face on the cover but as far as I can tell on IMDb he is an uncredited actor only, maybe he made this under a different name?