Island of Terror (1966)
Directed by Terence Fisher

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.

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...