October 2013 Edition #13: ISLE OF THE DEAD

Director: Mark Robson
Screenplay: Ardel Wray, Val Lewton (uncredited), and Josef Mischel (uncredited)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Marc Cramer, Jason Robards, Ellen Drew, Katherine Emery, Helene Thimig
Release Date: September 1st, 1945



From 1942 to 1946 film producer Val Lewton was tasked with heading up the horror branch of RKO pictures. His assignment was to produce features for less than $150,000 with a running time of no more than 75 minutes, based on nothing more than a lurid title provided by his supervisors. Working within these constraints Lewton gathered a group of directors together and churned out a series of films that relied entirely on atmosphere and the restless imaginations of the viewer to invoke their scares. Lurid titles like Jacques Tourneur’s CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE have been lauded by filmmakers as renowned as Martin Scorsese for their ability to invoke dreadful frights out of thin air. Until now, I hadn’t seen any of the films Lewton produced, but after giving ISLE OF THE DEAD a shot, I am very eager to check out the rest of his oeuvre.

The film is set in Greece during the First Balkan War, and follows General Pherides (Karloff) known among his men as “The Watchdog” due to his harsh methods, such as forcing one of his colleagues to commit suicide for underperforming in a recent battle. Marc Cramer co-stars as Oliver Davis, an American war correspondent who agrees to accompany Pherides to a nearby island, know as the “Isle of the Dead”, to visit the tomb of Pherides deceased wife. Once there, they discover the tomb empty, but follow the haunting singing of a female voice to the home of Dr. Albrecht, an archaeologist who lives on the island with his maid, Madame Kyra, along with several houseguests. When one of the guests dies in their sleep, it is determined that a plague has beset the isle, and General Pherides, fearful of infecting his troops, issues a strict quarantine. No one is to leave the island until he deems it safe. But the superstitious Madame Kyra is convinced that they are actually being preyed upon by a Vorvolaka, a sort of vampiric female demon, and as the body count rises the increasingly psychotic Pherides begins to agree, fingering the innocent Thea as his prime suspect. With all exits and, seemingly, their fates sealed, the rest of the group attempts to maintain their sanity as well as their humanity until the plague passes.

What makes this flick work is, absolutely and without a doubt, the immense dread-filled atmosphere that drenches every frame from beginning to end. The entire movie seems to take place in a perpetual dusk, and the early scenes as Pherides and Davis traverse a ravaged battlefield takes full advantage of the artificiality of the stage-bound surroundings, with the inky blacks and sharp contrast lending the scenes a very noir-ish quality that effectively sets an eerie mood. Once the pair arrive on the isle the dread is omnipresent. It certainly helps that much of the film involves our characters ruminate on their mortality, coming to terms with the fact that they could certainly die in the ensuing hours. One of the guests, Mary, suffers from catalepsy, a condition in which the sufferer falls into a deep coma lasting up to a day in which they appear to be dead. She is utterly petrified of accidentally being buried alive and, through a rather large plot contrivance, only shares this information with Dr. Drosso, who conveniently succumbs to the plague before he can warn anybody. As the power struggle between Pherides and the rest of the guests plays out, Mary acts as the proverbial ticking time bomb. We know exactly what’s going to happen, but when, and how will it play out?

Most of the acting is rather off-putting, as Davis and the rest seem far too at ease with what’s occurring, mostly treating the whole thing as a lark. Karloff really carries the show here, bringing an intensity to Pherides that imbues the flick with a real sense of tension. Easily influenced by the malignant Kyra after finding his wife’s corpse missing, it is clear that Pherides is only doing what his training tells him is the right thing to do, even if that entails the murder of a clearly innocent girl.

What’s cool about this movie is that, despite the reliance on the legend of the Vorvolaka, there is absolutely no supernatural presence involved in this tale. The only corpse that rises from the grave is that of Mary and, while I realize that might sound spoilery, the movie makes no bones about trying to hide her eventual fate. What is awesome is how the scene of her awakening plays out, via a series of shots cutting back to the darkened crypt in which the remaining guests have entombed the still-living woman. With each cut the camera comes closer to the tomb, focusing in on water droplets landing on the lid, each splash louder than the last until…..I won’t give it away, except to say that I was utterly taken aback by just how effectively chilled I was by a movie that is nearly seventy years old.

Though relatively light in plot and certainly slow-moving by modern standards, at a lean 72 minutes there is little room for complaint with regards to the film’s methodical pacing. Director Mark Robson set out to tell a story of a man letting his imagination get the best of him, effectively frightening himself to death, and in doing so puts the viewer through the same experience. ISLE OF THE DEAD may be old-fashioned, but scary is scary, folks, especially when the terror comes from within one’s own mind.

My Rating:
8/10