Film Review
One of a number of small British film companies hoping to imitate the
success of Hammer and Amicus in the horror/fantasy genre, Planet Film
Productions made a modest impact in the mid-1960s with a short series
of micro-budget horror flicks, the most memorable of which are
Island of Terror (1966) and
Night of the Big Heat (1967).
Both films were directed by Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher and starred
Peter Cushing but, interestingly, they were very different to Hammer's
contemporary output and instead harked back to the company's earlier
successes in the 1950s, science-fiction horrors such as
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
and
X: The Unknown (1956).
Even for the time in which it was made,
Island of Terror was horribly dated
and Fisher, an intelligent and highly professional director, must have
known this. The film is an effective, indeed affectionate, homage
to the Quatermass-style papier mâché monster movies of the
past, with a convincing-looking crew of scientists acting responsibly
(if you can call impregnating a herd of cattle with radioactive
isotopes and hoping for the best responsible) to save humanity from a
not-very-convincing alien menace. Here, the alien menace in
question looks oddly like a chic new design of vacuum cleaner, complete
with hose-like tentacle that effectively sucks bone out of its hapless
victims. Nice.
Risible as the script is (no trite B-movie cliché is left
unturned), Fisher somehow manages to deliver a tense and compelling
thriller that is let down only by the film's all-too-obvious budgetary
limitations. Compared with
The Day of the Triffids (1962),
which has a virtually identical plot and an equally talented cast (but
somewhat bigger budget),
Island of
Terror is far more effective in delivering the thrills, and this
is entirely down to Fisher's imaginative direction and some inventive
camerawork. In some shots (but admittedly not all), the Silicates
are genuinely terrifying, and the fleeting shots of them feasting on
their prey and splitting in two are enough to turn your stomach.
Only when the creatures are filmed head-on in full light do they look
frankly ridiculous. Viewed from a distance in fading light they
are fiercely unnerving, an army of vacuum cleaners on a killer rampage.
With some unbearably homespun dialogue to contend with it's no surprise
that most of the cast have a hard time looking convincing. Never
one to be deterred by a poor script, Peter Cushing once again excels as
a driven scientist who gets hoist on his own professional petard
(losing a hand in the process in the film's most horrific
sequence). Co-star Edward Judd is merely going through the
motions, with Carole Gray thrown in as a nice bit of eye candy, ready
to scream her lungs out and look suitably pathetic as and when the
script demands (so much for women's lib). As ever, it's the
interesting and most likeable characters that end up meeting a grisly
end, whilst the nauseating leads played by photogenic stars get away
without so much as a graze, but that's the way it goes. Had the
film been made ten years earlier, its amusing little coda would almost
certainly have resulted in a bigger budget sequel, so perhaps we should
be grateful for small mercies.
Island
of Terror could never be mistaken for a masterpiece but it is a
deliciously fun romp for fans of 1950s-style sci-fi oriented
horror. Just why its design for a new vacuum cleaner never caught
on is a mystery.
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Terence Fisher film:
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Film Synopsis
On Petrie's Island, a small island off the coast of Ireland, Dr
Lawrence Phillips is undertaking research into an innovative cure for
cancer when he unwittingly creates a new form of life. The
silicon-based creature thrives on human bone and begins feasting on the
island's population. Unable to account for the mysterious
killings, the local doctor calls in a renowned pathologist, Dr Brian
Stanley, who enlists the help of another noted scientists Dr David
West, who cannot resist bringing his girlfriend along. Not long
after their arrival on the island, Stanley and West trace the cause of
the killings to Phillips' laboratory and make a terrifying
discovery. Whenever they feed, the creatures, dubbed Silicates,
split in two. Within just a few days the island will be swarming
with millions of them...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.