I Watch Films: Island Of Terror

Island Of Terror

On a remote island off the coast of Ireland a man is found dead, all his bones dissolved. The doctor heads to London, taking the only boat on the island between weekly deliveries (?)* to consult an expert pathologist (Peter Cushing). He in turn talks to a bone expert, catching him at home with his girlfriend. She, earwigging, tells them that she can get her rich father to fly them back in a helicopter but insists on joining them.

It turns out that there is a laboratory on the island, where a secretive doctor is seeking a cure for cancer in a spooky former castle. He and his associates have created a bone eating monster, with a silicate armour making them immune to bullets, explosives etc, at least in the half-arsed way the locals deploy them.

If I’m overly harsh then it’s because it feels like an extended episode of a 60s science fiction TV show, as our main characters meet locals, try various things and find themselves trapped in the end with a moment of crisis. At the final attack our bone doctor is nerving himself up to inject his girlfriend with something deadly to spare her the agony of having her bones dissolved and that’s pretty intense. Despite the film's best efforts the creatures are more weird than creepy and scary.

Watch This: For a swift 60 science fiction adventure with one or two surprises
Don’t Watch This: If you want something especially clever, or if you want female characters to do anything

* They talk about the government not having put in a telephone line which is plausible in the 1960s but no one has a radio and no one has their own boat, and this frankly beggars belief. And having commandeered a helicopter it’s then needed elsewhere so can’t come back for them in a timely fashion. It’s a lazy way of cutting off the island, just asserting there is no way to even contact the outside world.