Isle Of The Dead Review

• 6th Jun 2011

Val Lewton produced RKO chiller starring Boris Karloff can only mean that you are in for a massively enjoyable evening. Lewton is the legendary producer that elevated the creepy B-movie to the status of classic. Productions such as Cat People, The Leopard Man and I Walked with a Zombie are now all seen as all-time classics. Isle of the Dead was one of the three pictures he made with Horror icon Boris Karloff just adding another layer of cult status to this film.

Isle of the Dead is set during the First Balkan War in 1912 as Gen. Nikolas Pherides decides to visit his wife’s final resting place on a small island. Once he arrives he finds himself caught up in an apparent plague outbreak forcing him to enforce quarantine. Naturally things go downhill from there as they attempt to uncover the cause as the bodies just continue to pile up.

The films of Val Lewton for RKO were marked by their frightening atmosphere above all else. Martin Scorsese recently declared that Isle of the Dead was the 11^th scariest film he has ever seen in his life. The use of shadows and suggestion were a necessary due to the fact that the studio was operating on miniscule budgets. Lewton became head of the B-movie Horror department in 1942 and was given an immediate set of rules that he would have follow. His budget would never exceed $150,000, the titles of all his films would be given to him and no film could run longer than 75 minutes. Thankfully these limitations simply made Lewton think around any problem he encountered delivering eleven remarkable films over four years.

Isle of the Dead came towards the end of Lewton’s tenure when he made three films in a row with Karloff. The feeling of dread is as evident in this film as all his others, delivered by his favorite director Mark Robson. The tension builds towards the atmospheric conclusion that has the usual beautiful girl running around in a white outfit to maximum effect. Karloff is superbly entertaining doing his best Greek accent with little actual authenticity. His now legendary face is enough to tingle the very back of your spine time and time again.

There is a somber tone of sadness and nostalgia in Isle of the Dead that re-calls other RKO classic such as The Curse of the Cat People. Leigh Harline’s score adds a majestic air of impending doom to all those now stranded on the island. The threat is as always invisible as people move around in rooms and corridors attempting to avoid what they cannot see.

Having been available in the Val Lewton Box Set in the states for a long while it’s great to see this RKO classic getting the UK release it deserved. Odoen’s on-going campaign of releasing a wired and wonderful mix of forgotten films from the 1930’s and 40’s hits pay dirt again here. The print is actually very decent with minor scratching at best and no sound issues at all. Fans of both Lewton and Karloff will be more than happy with this classic chiller.

Aled Jones