A slow death

tomsview

Although Val Lewton's "Cat People", "The Seventh Victim" and "I Walked with a Zombie" are some of the most intriguing films ever, I don't think he and his team were able to breathe much life into "Isle of the Dead".

The film takes place in 1912 at the conclusion of a battle between Greece and an unnamed enemy. Most of the action, and I use the word advisedly, happens on an island where a group of people are quarantined to stop the spread of a deadly plague. A superstition begins to take hold that the plague is linked to a demonic creature, a Vorvolakas, which can inhabit one person and feed off the spirit of another. Many die before the sickness ends.

The one and only large scale set, the battlefield at night, is unconvincing and stagy. The so-called septicemic plague that strikes down the group consists of victims staggering around and then dying rather serenely. Maybe the real effects of septicemic plague with limbs changing colour as the body's blood supply is rapidly poisoned was just too horrific in 1945 even for a horror film.

Although many ideas are espoused, "Isle of the Dead" is an interminable talkfest. The actors project the stillness and lack of animation that was a hallmark of Lewton's films. The exception is Boris Karloff, who as General Pherides, commander of the Greek Army, brings a powerful presence to the proceedings. Unfortunately he is let down by the overwrought script.

With so much depending on dialogue, it is surprising that the screenwriters had so little feeling for military life and the importance of Pherides as the commander of the Greek army.

Ridiculously he is able to walk off the battlefield with only a reporter in tow to visit his wife's grave on a nearby island. They do this so casually, despite walking through piles of bodies, that it wouldn't have seemed sillier if they had hailed a taxi. One aspect of the film that is particularly distracting is when the General, although marooned on the island by the plague, somehow manages to send for a doctor, but otherwise makes little attempt to tell his army where he is nor indicates that he might even be missed. It's certainly not the way George S. Patton would have handled things.

The basic elements that made other Lewton tales so effective are here, but assembled in such a lacklustre fashion that they do not elevate the film above it's barely serviceable sets. Along with "The Ghost Ship", I find "Isle of the Dead" the least appealing of his films. Lewton's best work may have been behind him by this stage, although, "The Body Snatchers" and "Bedlam" would go a long way towards recapturing past glories.

score 5/10

tomsview 13 May 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2796982/