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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 2:47:44 GMT
Reclusive oncologist Dr. Lawrence Phillips (Peter Forbes-Robertson) is on the verge of curing cancer. He and his assistants have set up shop on the remote Petrie's Island, somewhere off the coast of Ireland, an island with no working phones, a weekly visit by a supply ship, and only one cop. Dr. Phillips' experiment is reaching a head, when, suddenly, something goes wrong. There is a flash of red light, and some breaking glass and we smash cut to the opening credits...
Island of Terror.
The night of the ill-fated experiment, That night, local farmer Ian Bellows (Liam Gaffney) is walking home through the woods when he hears a strange, electronic warbling noise coming from inside a cave. He decides to investigate. Bad move, Ian.
When Ian doesn't return home, his wife contacts Constable John Harris (Sam Kydd), the aforementioned only cop, who finds the waylaid farmer in the cave after searching the forest. But his corpse is in such a state that Harris rushes to get Reginald Landers (Eddie Byrne), the island's doctor. An examination of Ian's corpse confirms Landers' worst fears; the dead man is completely boneless! At his wit's end, Landers heads to the mainland to see Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) in London. Unfortunately, although Stanley is Britain's foremost pathologist he has never heard of a disease that dissolves human bone.
Undaunted, Stanley takes Landers in turn to see hotshot young osteopath David West (Edward Judd), currently attempting to talk his way into the pants of Toni Merrill (Carole Gray), a former patient of his. Thoroughly cockblocked by Stanley and Landers, West is confounded by the tale of a boneless corpse, but agrees to return to Petrie's Island with the other two doctors. Toni, who has a rich father, offers the use of daddy's private helicopter with which to fly to the island, provided the three men let her tag along. Upon arrival however, Toni's father requires the chopper for some last-minute business. The pilot is forced to drop the four people off at the island and then fly away, leaving them effectively stranded until he can return. Uh-oh.
The doctors set immediately to work. They discover Ian was injected with a new enzyme that dissolves calcium phosphate, but can't figure out what produces it. The local clinic doesn't provide sophisticated enough equipment, so Landers suggests they go and see Dr. Phillips, as Phillips' laboratory, located in an old mansion in the woods, is better equipped. Upon arriving however, they discover that Phillips and his assistants are all just as dead as Ian Bellows... and just as boneless. Reasoning that whatever Phillips was mucking around with started all of this, West, Stanley and Landers gathers up the dead scientist's notes to study them.
As soon as they've left, another farmer comes to complain to Constable Harris that one of his horses has been found dead and, shall we say, relieved of its skeleton. Harris hurries to the mansion to tell the three doctors, but arrives after they've gone. Doing a little exploring of his own, he is drawn to one room they didn't go into by a strange electronic warbling, the same Ian Bellows heard coming from the cave before, only to be seized by the throat by a green tentacle...
The entities responsible for all the sudden bonelessness on Petrie's Island, the results of Dr. Phillips' work to cure cancer, are squat, green things vaguely resembling starfish with one long tentacle each, which they use to inject a bone-dissolving enzyme into their victims. Worse, they are nigh impossible to kill, as poor Dr. Landers discovers when our heroes return to the mansion looking for the missing Harris, and he tries to kill one with an axe; Landers promptly exits the movie screaming. The creatures however also reproduce by fission, but luckily they are inert for a brief period after dividing, which allows West, Toni and Stanley to make a hasty getaway.
After learning all they can from Dr. Phillips' notes, West and Stanley opt to inform the islanders about the situation. Here we meet Roger Campbell (Niall MacGinnis) and Peter Argyle (James Caffrey), an older farmer and the owner of the village market respectively, whom the townspeople look to as their leaders. Despite appearing slow at first, the pair are quick to believe everything that the visiting doctors tell them (a little too quickly, in fact; there's being openminded and then there's being gullible), and offer their assistance in helping them destroy the monsters, which West and Stanley eventually dub "Silicates."
Campbell and his men attack the Silicates with everything they've got, but the creatures are amazingly tough: bullets, Molotov cocktails, and dynamite all fail to even hurt them. But hope is restored when a dead Silicate is found, and it turns out that the unfortunate monster died as a result of eating the bones of a dog from Dr. Phillips' laboratory, which were contaminated with Strontium-90, an isotope which settles in bone. West hatches himself a hare-brained scheme to destroy the bone-sucking beasties once and for all. After instructing Campbell and Argyle to sequester all the cows on the island in Campbell's cattle yard, he and Stanley return to the mansion and get some more Strontium 90 from Phillips' lab.
To do so, they must don very silly-looking radiation suits (which more resemble something you'd wear to protect yourself from germs, not radioactivity), and after a lengthy and suspenseful sequence (i.e. boring) of them carefully handling the radioactive materials, they are successful and make ready to depart the creepy manor for good. Unfortunately, on their way out, Stanley gets attacked by a lone Silicate whose tentacle grabs him by the wrist. Grabbing the axe dropped by Landers earlier, West is forced to amputate his friend's hand in order to save his life (a shot of the hand actually being cut off is cut from the current UK DVD, I believe, but present on the US VHS release from the 90's).
Although Stanley survives, he spends the remainder of the movie confined to the local clinic. Using a strange silvery injector gun thingy, West contaminates all the cows in Campbell's cattle yard. Toni and the rest of the monster fodder--I mean townspeople are holed up in the town meeting hall until the crisis blows over, while West, Campbell and Argyle keep watch on the cattle. They do not have to wait long: the Silicates very swiftly appear and gobble up all the cow bones, then come after the three humans who hurriedly retreat to the meeting hall.
There's just one problem. The Silicates divide after eating the cows, which means the power and the effect of the Strontium-90 is cut in half, and will take that much longer to kill them. West, Toni, and the islanders have a siege ahead of them. They must hold out long enough for the isotope to kick in...
A minor cult classic of British horror that has sadly fallen through the cracks of time, 1966's Island of Terror is a movie that certainly deserves more fame than it's gotten over time (especially a proper American DVD release!) due to some stellar performances by a great little cast, headed by stalwart Peter Cushing, and also due to its frankly creepy central premise. Having your skeleton sucked out while you're still alive sounds pretty damn nasty! A shame the movie's budget wouldn't allow for actually showing it, although the boneless corpses we're treated to look pretty icky.
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Post by killercrab on Apr 16, 2012 15:13:33 GMT
(a shot of the hand actually being cut off is cut from the current UK DVD, I believe, but present on the US VHS release from the 90's). >>
The insert of Peter Cushing's hand was added originally to the U.S. theatrical release - it was never in the British print.
KC
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 18:43:11 GMT
Ah, learn something new every day. I had assumed it was in the UK version as well, and that what was shown on the Universal VHS was essentially the full, unaltered movie. Now I find otherwise. Great trivia.
Also, as it turns out, the DVD I mentioned (without the hand-cutting) is out of print. I think it was by DD, as part of their Masters of Horror series. I also have The Blood Beast Terror and Night of the Big Heat by them. As regards the former, I think there is some problem with their DVD of it, as they used one of its many alternate titles, "The Vampire Beast Craves Blood," I believe, in the actual movie, so that the film has a different title than the one on the DVD case.
Anyway, was the insert shot of Stanley's hand getting cut off shot for the US cut or added later by Americans? I mean, did the British film crew do it with the intention of putting in a foreign cut but not theirs, or did the American distributors have it shot on their own, thinking we ought to see Stanley's hand getting cut off? It seems a little odd that, whoever did, their idea of adding more gore to the US version amounts to one quick shot only!
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Post by killercrab on Apr 16, 2012 22:23:20 GMT
Added by the Americans.
The DD Video of The Blood Beast Terror uses the American print and it's title. Same film cut though. Night Of The Big Heat is another of my favourites - we appear to have similar tastes. ;D
KC
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Post by erebus on Apr 17, 2012 14:20:07 GMT
An absolute classic. And one that troubled me as a kid I recall. I always thought of this film as the twin brother to Fiend Without a Face. Always amazed me as something so clumsy looking could be so mobile and lethal. And the sounds those little buggers make. Brilliant stuff. Crying out for proper dvd treatment. Along with the also mentioned Bloodbeast Terror and The Creeping Flesh another film I adore. Oh hell and Tyburn's Legend of the Werewolf. Better stop here I could go on for hours .
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Post by doug on Apr 18, 2012 4:39:24 GMT
An absolute classic. And one that troubled me as a kid I recall. I always thought of this film as the twin brother to Fiend Without a Face. Always amazed me as something so clumsy looking could be so mobile and lethal. And the sounds those little buggers make. Brilliant stuff. Crying out for proper dvd treatment. Along with the also mentioned Bloodbeast Terror and The Creeping Flesh another film I adore. Oh hell and Tyburn's Legend of the Werewolf. Better stop here I could go on for hours . Try to get your hands on the German DVD. it's also in english and has been remastered! and it's cheap!! www.amazon.de/Island-Terror-Peter-Cushing/dp/B000T0JZ3Etake care. Doug
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Post by noose on Apr 18, 2012 7:24:46 GMT
I love it how Google Translate turns it into ICELAND OF TERROR....
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Post by doug on Apr 18, 2012 14:25:24 GMT
I love it how Google Translate turns it into ICELAND OF TERROR.... The German name for Iceland is "Island" (eeslaand) Take care. Doug
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Post by ripper on Dec 15, 2012 14:35:21 GMT
I watched Island of Terror a couple of months ago having not seen it for over 20 years. It was still as much fun as I had remembered it being, with a good cast and pace. I also like the similar Night of the Big Heat. Both used to turn up fairly regularly as the friday late-night film on BBC1 during the 1970s/1980s.
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Post by sickdrjoe on Dec 15, 2012 15:45:29 GMT
This one lulled me to sleep, I'm afraid.
But kudos to Kooshmeister anyway, just for using "cockblocked" in a horror-movie synopsis.
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