Plankenstein Review: Board of Slashers?

Dir: Diq Diamond

Release Date: 2025

“A cursed Hawaiian surfboard meant to guard royal heirs awakens. Police Captain Merry Miller must protect her stepdaughter's royal bloodline while stopping the board from claiming the souls of surfers in Kailua”

This review came about with an email from Mr Diq Diamond himself.

He asked us if we would consider watching, reviewing, posting, mentioning this film he made with a micro budget of less than $10,000 without any studio assistance.

Dom, naturally directed it to me, ol' Kenneth, as it appeared to be right up my proverbial alley

What Diq and Dom (huh?) didn't know was that ol' Kenneth was one step ahead and, with his finger on the pulse of outrageous film titles, had already waxed himself up, climbed on board in his vault and watched the film on Tubi!

It kicks off with a crime scene. A surfboard with severed foot and mid calf attached. Simple but effective.

Police Station and we meet one of our heroes, Captain Merry Miller discussing the victim remains and possible causes.

FUN FACT: Captain Merry Miller is played by Amy Jennings, who also produced the film and appears in 2020 Juliet Landau film A Place Among the Dead

In a nice inverse nod to Jaws, the deputy suggests lying about the cause of death and suggesting it actually IS passed off as a shark attack to avoid panic before the big Surf Competition.

The board they found attached to the leg is covered with bolts and scar-like notches and a boar's tusk sticking out of it. 'Bad Mana', it would seem and leads to our first and seemingly outrageous link to Hawaiian mythology.

FUN FACT: The film title gets mentioned numerous times in these opening minutes and then never said again apart from in theme tunes (I think). I counted 7 times.

Regardless, they throw it out by the dumpster where it can immediately be found by our hunky hero, Kalani, who wastes no time in introducing us to many of the characters through a credit scene bike ride with accompanying song.

FUN FACT: The song actually explains a lot of the plot if you can listen to the lyrics

I'm not going to go too deep into this one as it's out there, still fresh, for you to watch for yourself and I'm not here to explain it to you instead of you watching.

I'll just give you some of the tasty (pork based) teaser treats.

These treats don't get any tastier than Lili, played by Leilani Ramos, the heroine of the piece and our beautiful, promiscuous protagonist.

Her sex positive ways are actually used to bring victims into play as she is teased and subject to name calling (mainly 'Tuna' which might be the word most said after 'board' in the film. Admittedly, I did not count those) by most of the other characters.

Lili is also the stepdaughter of the Police Capt AND the descendant of the ancient King, the accidental creator of this cursed board! Still with me?

People be nasty to Lili, the board kills them. There's your plot. It's beautiful.

Oh, and Pork is involved. OF COURSE IT IS! Watch to understand how the Hell that all ties in!

In case you wondered about the surfing scenes, imagine a cross between California Games and Mortal Kombat. Genius.

FUN FACT FROM THE DIRECTOR: The surfing scenes were shot on green screen that was set up on the beach (the lighting was perfect and it was a way to have a second cam shooting while the main camera was shooting other scenes in the water)  and then Robert Maclean, our VFX guy as well as played the character of Scarey.The Elder, did his thing and created the waves from scratch using Blender (I think). I love those scenes. They are so right in genre with this style of film. Robert nailed the exact look I wanted. realish and campy as hell.

And so, you want deaths? We got them!

We get face stabs, throat slashes, - with spurting windpipe - a DICKapitation (wait for the fun fact about that), a whole massacre scene, and all a mix of digital effects and practical work.

FUN FACT FROM THE DIRECTOR: The windpipe was a dog chew. They sell dehydrated cow and pig oesophagus in bags at pet stores. I just took those and re-hydrated them in water for about 4 days. So it is actually a real windpipe. As well as the body parts in the water during the paddle out massacre. I went to China Town and bought as many different animal parts as I could find (heart, livers, kidneys, was bummed I could not find eyeballs).

We even get a full song and psychedelic dance routine at one point before we head to the big surf tournament.

In case you need to be offended by something else, we do get an animal death but it's clearly a toy and it actually made me laugh out loud, That's your advisory.

The scenes of the Captain and her deputy swimming out to grapple with and try to shoot a killer surfboard mid-struggle has to be something they would never have guessed themselves doing a year before filming

We also get an epilogue and an end credits scene so stay tuned for that, which is accompanied by another quality song trying to explain what you've just watched.

Time for that earlier teased 'Fun' Fact........

FUN FACT FROM THE DIRECTOR: The penis/dildo I bought at an adult book store. I collected pubic hair from the team and glued them onto the dildo (most of that came off). So it looked pretty raggedy. At the end of that day when we packed up we could not find the penis. It simply vanished. Some poor soul down the beach certainly got a shock when the appendage drifted ashore.

That's some team work ethic right there!

If the person who found it is reading this, get it in a case and throw it on eBay!

If any of 'Lili's' hair is still on it, I'll buy it myself!

So, you've heard about Plankenstein: A Killer Surf Movie. Here's the wrap up:

This micro-budget independent film from Hawaii may be a little rough around the edges and it may not win best film of the year but it's enjoyable and a lot of fun.

All of the actors do a good job with their characters, playing it mainly straight with nobody hamming it up to the point of being annoying, and I could watch Lili on a surfboard all day long.

There are some good jokes both visually and written into the dialogue scoring more hits than misses.

I would have liked to see more practical effects in the killings themselves and am hopeful of that should the budget increase for the next project, which brings me to......

FUN FACT FROM THE DIRECTOR: There are both a prequel and a sequel written. We will likely shoot the sequel next summer. Possible film name teaser: Plankenstein vs. Surfsquatch

I mean, come on! There is no way I would miss a film with that title.

Independent films are people working to make their dreams come true and I for one, will always support that. Mr Diamond, I salute you. Keep up the good work.

Plankenstein: A Killer Surf Movie is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Fandango, VimeoTV, XUMO and Bloodstream.

Check it out, come back and let me know what you think!

FAVOURITE CHARACTER:

Obviously Leilani Ramos as Lili but a special shout out to Roggerio Batera who, as well as working on Sound for the film, puts in a great recurring appearance as a lifeguard who just runs about the place every time there's a killing.

FAVOURITE MOMENT:

The slow motion treatment with sad music as we see the severed penis floating about in bloodied water.

FAVOURITE LINE:

Captain Miller: “The surf may be up but this board's going down!”. and then just runs headlong into the ocean.

FAVOURITE DEATH:

I do enjoy a dick being ripped off, everybody knows that, but I liked the massacre scene in this one, giving us more blood (and real entrails) for your buck!

Link to the movie website: https://www.plankensteinthemovie.com/

Link to Movie Merch: https://www.cafepress.com/shop/PlankensteinAKillerSurfMovie