Absolutely Brilliant!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This film is not half bad. It's not Zucco's nor Atwill's best film but it's a pretty good older mystery-thriller with trace elements of horror added to the mix.Leo Grainer (Zucco) is out for revenge. He was set-up and sent to the big house and while he was there his wife was murdered while the criminal or criminals searched for hidden treasures within his home on Fog Island. Now Grainer is seeking out who murdered his wife and to get revenge on the one or those that have betrayed him. He has a step-daughter, Gail, who is staying with him and becomes a part of his plan to help get criminal or criminals.Fun to watch, great way to kill an hour if you like the older mysteries.7/10

This does not have much of a reputation, despite a number of interesting/reliable presences – George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Ian Keith and Jerome Cowan – and, having watched it now, I can see why! Of the quartet, Zucco (the nominal protagonist, despite expiring well before the end!) and Keith (who, at one point, engages in a vigorous and amusingly speeded-up scuffle with the hero) come off best: on the other hand, Atwill is wasted in one of his last roles, whereas Cowan barely even registers! Anyway, the film is not really horror, more a thriller on the lines of Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE – whose best screen rendition actually came out the same year as this! The narrative, in fact, deals with framed ex-con Zucco inviting those responsible for his going 'up the river' to the titular abode in order to exact revenge: as bait, he uses the fact that the island is supposed to hide a fortune, while another motive has to do with his beloved wife (called Karma!)'s death. However, the plot details are so sketchy (the muffled audio and occasional splices do not help in this regard) as to make for a thoroughly dreary ride...especially in view of the fact that Zucco has arranged things so that the majority of the characters are eliminated en masse (by way of that standard device, the water-logged room) when, in this type of fare, one looks forward to as many ingenious murder methods as possible! There is also the inevitable romance (which runs hot and cold this time around) between the young folk: one is Zucco's stepdaughter, naturally, and the other the likewise innocent son of a deceased guest (it comes as no surprise at all, then, that they emerge the sole survivors). For the rest, we get such clichéd 'old dark house' trappings as a secret passage (activated by a button on the no-less-obligatory pipe-organ and which virtually the entire cast contrives to try out – again, a distinct sign of laziness!) and a seance (held at Atwill's behest but which he then fails to attend!). Though not particularly remarkable, atmosphere is serviceably rendered throughout yet, all things considered, the film is certainly no great shakes.

First time of watching: entertaining low budget spooky house mystery with Zucco and Atwill at their eye-popping peaks. Terrible print - the negative must look transparent, so I would definitely recommend switching the lights off (or a cinema) for optimum viewing.It's a PRC stagey mix of And Then There Were None (in this case, Two) and The Cat And The Canary, with a few extra twists, but with only nine characters. The butler was a short-lived oddball however, quickly dispatched with gusto from the plot to the cynical amusement of Zucco. To my cynical amusement it's at that moment that Zucco is reminded that he "blew his top" when he was in prison - not hard to imagine!The male romantic lead was even more wooden, impetuous and prescient than the rest of the cast (Jerome Cowan was wasted yet again), but overall I enjoyed the film, nice atmosphere when the print allowed and an almost believable nasty-revenge storyline.

****SPOILERS**** The only thing that seems to make any sense about the movie "Fog Island" is that the bitter and vengeful Leo Grainer, George Zucco, wanted to know for sure if any or all of the people that he invited to stay over at his home Alic Ritchfield, Lionel Atwill, Kavanaugh, Jerome Cowan, Syivla, Veda Ann Borg, and Emiline Bronson, Jaqueline Dewit, on Fog Island murdered his dear wife Karma. Finding out later in the film, at the cost of Leo's life, that Karma was murdered by his invited guests he could then die happily knowing that their greed would lead them right into the trap that he set for them.When Leo was framed by the above mentioned individuals for embezzling his company and sent to prison they not only looted whatever was still left in the company's coffers but in their mindless greed went to Fog Island. After not finding out from Leo's wife Karma where he stashed a large portion of his liquid assets, that they felt that he hid from them, they murdered her.His business bankrupt his wife dead and his future bleak Leo after getting out of prison had only one reason for living. That was to punish those who destroyed his life and murdered his wife Karma. At first you wondered why these people would take Leo up on his invitation to come and stay overnight at his home on the Island as guests? They knew how much Leo hated them and how unstable and crazy he was. As you watched them in the movie you soon saw just how much their greed blinded them and distorted their reason from seeing this. Leo playing on their greed made them think that he had a large amount of liquid assets hidden somewhere on Fog Island. In the end Leo's guests didn't find any assets but got far more liquids that they could have ever hoped for.The good acting in the movie "Fog Island" by George Zucco and Lionel Atwill couldn't save the films very inane and uneven story. I could not understand why it was never really explained in the movie why Leo would hire an escaped convict Allerton, George Lloyd, to be his butler? We always see Allerton snooping around the house and looking into every nook and cranny obviously looking for the money that he thinks that Leo has hidden there. Allerton is later confronted by Doc Lake, Ian Keith, Leo's former accountant and cell-mate. Doc gets into a fight with Allerton where he knocks him over a railing into the water and to his death. Leo who was in the background watching all of this seemed about as interested in what was happening as he would have been if he were watching the swallows flying north to Capistrano. There was also Jeff, John Whitney, who was not on Leo's guest list but who invited himself on the Island anyway. Jeff wanted to take Leo's pretty step-daughter Gail, Sharon Douglas, off the Island and away with him. The relationship between Jeff and Gail was so contrived and phony that you couldn't believe it for a second even if you wanted to.How did Jeff know that he and Gail would find a letter from Gail's mother, Karma, hid in a secret and hidden desk compartment insisting that she leave the Island immediately? Did Jeff have a crystal ball that enabled him to see into the future?