Beautiful, moving film.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

This is a hugely enjoyable sci-fi horror film from the not terribly well remembered Planet Film Productions. Wonderfully directed by the great Terence Fisher, it reminds me of the "Quatermass" serials and some of the best American sci-fi films of the 1950s. It concerns a scientist who accidentally created a new lifeform, called a silicate, from a silicon atom in his attempt to cure cancer. As well as being a cool sci-fi plot, it's a nice commentary on well-intentioned scientists creating something with a peaceful application only for it to be subverted. The film takes place on the fictional Petrie's Island off the east coast of my native Ireland. According to Wikipedia, the film had a budget of only £70,000. If that is true, it's a testament to Fisher's great skill as a director since the film looks fantastic.The always superb Peter Cushing and the underrated Edward Judd lead a strong cast of predominantly Irish actors including Cushing's "The Mummy" and "Star Wars" co-star Eddie Byrne, Niall MacGinnis, Sam Kydd, James Caffrey and Liam Gaffney. The film's only major female cast member is Carole Gray, who is excellent as Toni Merrill, the love interest of Judd's character David West. She had a short acting career, which encompassed a mere eight films and three TV appearances, which is a shame as she would have made a great Bond girl or Hammer leading lady. The film is very well written with a strong plot which respects the audience's intelligence. The characters all seem like real people. I always get a little nervous when Irish people are depicted in British or American films but I need not have worried as no one said "Top o' the mornin' to ya" and the characters did not look like 19th Century farmers or IRA members. It's actually quite an accurate portrayal of rural Ireland in the 1960s, though the British number plates, lack of signs in Irish and one or two other things belie the fact that it was shot in Britain. When it came to the sci-fi and horror elements, the major threat posed by the silicates is emphasised by their excellent design, which is better than the design of most creatures in contemporaneous American sci-fi shows, and the distinctive noise that they make. There are many frightening visuals, particularly the remains of the various victims of the silicates whose bones have been liquefied. The film bears some superficial similarities to the lacklustre 1967 film "Night of the Big Heat", which likewise was made by Planet Film, was directed by Fisher, featured Cushing and concerned a crisis which took place on a remote island. It would seem to me that they were trying to recreate the success of this film but they failed, I'm afraid, as that one was nowhere near as good. Incidentally, Cushing's character Brian Stanley shares his name with one of my local TDs, which is what we call our MPs in Ireland. Sadly though, he's no Peter Cushing.

O.K., we can all agree that there have been some pretty silly looking monsters in 1950's and 1960's horror movies. A flowing blob of goo, giant turkeys, walking trees and even a rock that waddled after its intended victims. Now here comes one of the oddest, a silly looking creature that rumor has was authorized by the Hoover administration-a vacuum cleaner like creature that literally sucks the bone marrow and the solid mass around it right out of it. These creatures also have the ability to climb trees and drop out of the sky just like that house in "The Wizard of Oz". That most serious of all mad doctors, Peter Cushing, is aghast to find out that his experiments unleashed this evil. All he wanted to do was go to the peaceful island to work on a cure for cancer. The entire island ends up trapped in a building surrounded by them, just like the townspeople haunted by the blob and other various monsters in similar films. Add on radioactivity to make these hose nosed creatures even more dangerous, and you've got another film reminding us of what the world has done wrong. So enjoy the unbelievable silliness of the whole thing and remember afterwards that your own household appliance is just that...or is it?

Despite the presence of Terence Fisher and Peter Cushing, ISLAND OF TERROR is not a Hammer production. Surprisingly--because besides the star and director it has all of the assets we attribute to Hammer: an intelligent script hinged around a far-fetched premise; an expert cast including some outstanding character actors (in this case, a sadly wasted Niall MacGinnis); and modest but substantial production values bolstering what might best be called resourceful special effects.Produced in the days of the double bill, its 89 minutes fly by—just enough time to be convinced by ISLAND OF TERROR's imaginative calcium- sucking "silicates." The unlikely products of cancer research, the silicates look like huge oyster-shells with a single tentacular proboscis waving from (what one presumes is) the front end. Slow-moving but sneaky, their presence is announced by creepy (and for 1962, groundbreaking) electronic sound effects, and their deadly tentacles overtake even the wariest interloper. These uniquely-conceived monsters are just one of ISLAND OF TERROR's many pleasures, along with the ingenious (but hard on cattle) scheme our heroes devise to overcome the menace, the embattled island (inhabited by a couple of hundred people, who among them unfortunately have only one boat) mise-en-scene, and (SPOILER ALERT) the wacky sense of humour the previously dour Cushing develops after having his arm chopped off.Let us not underrate ISLAND OF TERROR; its craftsmanship stands up a half-century later, when more "serious" efforts from the same decade merely look embarrassing. It has many genuinely scary moments, including a classic, "it's-not-over" denouement, which make it a genuinely pleasurable movie experience.

A reclusive scientist working on a cancer cure inadvertently unleashes deadly creatures onto the local population, turning it into an...Island Of Terror!'Island Of Terror' is an interesting midpoint between 50s sci-fi and 60s Hammer horror - too light for what Hammer and Amicus usually produced, but their gravitational pull is evident. There's something very Quatermass about science unleashing havoc, yet science also providing the solution. There's a nice element of mystery to set the scene, with people being brutally murdered off-screen and their corpses being discovered sans bones, but at the same time, you are left in no doubt that there must be some connection with the scientist up in the manor house and his secretive experiments. Soon enough, the horror he unleashes becomes apparent, and it's up to the three 'responsible' scientists, played by Edward Judd, Peter Cushing, and Eddie Byrne, for whom the film goes to great pains to show how responsible they are as they wisely spend a lot of time studying notes before taking action and applying science methodically, while the uneducated locals must wait patiently because science takes time and there's a process to things. Yes, there are monsters coming over the hill, but there's a procedure to everything and it has to be followed. One can't really disagree with any of this, but the way in which the film portrays the scientific method if anything, shows how long ago it was held in such high regard - it's just hard to imagine a film doing this today. The nature and form of the monsters themselves instantly brings to mind the classic Star Trek episode 'Devil In The Dark', although their appearance and design is more classic Doctor Who. Which is quite fitting, given that Quatermass inspired early Doctor Who, lead Peter Cushing had been playing him on the big screen for the last two years, and both 'Dr Who & The Daleks' and 'Island Of Terror' were scored by Malcolm Lockyer.Cushing, I have to say, is wonderful in this film. A far cry from the sombre puritans or mad scientists he would soon become well-known for, here, he is dashing, rounded, and somehow far more natural in his performance. This is more of the Peter Cushing the world used to see before horror films took over his life and it's great to see within the part of his filmography I'm more interested in. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are extremely theatrical by comparison, with Edward Judd getting very declarative by the end - he reminds me of the way Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes would practically give speeches on the proper order of things before the closing credits. I'm almost expecting him to turn to the quivering frequently-Carole Gray and say 'Don't worry, my dear - science will save you!' Nonetheless, Judd is the archetypal square-jawed hero and fits the part.Director Terence Fisher was a firmly-established horror veteran by this point, with the Dracula series and one of my favorites, 'The Gorgon' his recent successes. Having seen the latter again fairly recently, I noticed the same approach to mood lighting, although this time around, the 'big reveal' happens earlier, and Fisher leaves the design team to breathe life into the antagonists of the piece. I think he would have gotten away with it for the most part, but for aspects of the design (read: appendages) that require puppetmasters more skilled than those on offer for them to stand a snowflake's chance in hell of convincing the viewer. They work fine when they're hovering menacingly around a door frame, but not so much when the dreaded miscreation they're attached to shuffles into view. The only reason it even half-works is because the cast face their foes with the same conviction the Doctor Who stars were so frequently seen to give down on the sound stages of Lime Grove.Less defensible, unfortunately, is Malcolm Lockyer's frequently light and fluffy score. His trademark cues and melodies worked wonders in 1965's 'Dr Who & The Daleks', where the words 'kids matinée' were practically stamped into Roy Castle's forehead, but it's hard to feel a sense of creeping foreboding in 'Island Of Terror' when the camera is panning through the eerie, deserted scientist's mansion accompanied by xylophone motifs. This is a film where the production values need every other department on board to help project a convincingly menacing atmosphere - not have the composer imagining cartoon bees dancing on toadstools. Again, this underscores for me how the film sits between two genres and no-one's fully made up their minds which way it should go.Putting all these elements together, I find myself giving 'Island Of Terror' a 6 out of 10. I'm frequently drawn to Peter Cushing like a magnet, and he's in fine form here. I love the idea behind the monsters of the piece, and the respect given to science as it triumphs over all when used properly. Alas, the creatures' design needed a slight revision on the drawing board under the title 'Let's be realistic about what we're able to do here', while James Bernard should have been placed in the conductor's chair. A pleasing effort, and worth a look especially if sci-fi of the period appeals.