Isle of the Dead is not the best of Val Lewton's films but has enough to confirm the man's genius as the force behind Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. The major weakness with Isle of the Dead is an excruciatingly slow first half hour. After that the pace picks up rapidly and the last 15 minutes are a real nail-biter. The mood and atmosphere are present, eerily effective and reminiscent of I Walked with a Zombie.
This time the setting is an almost deserted Greek island that serves as a cemetery and on which Greek General Boris Karloff (miscast but enjoyable) finds himself stuck with a plague outbreak while his troops are fighting the Ottomans during the Balkan War of 1912. He goes from being a cold, logical and hard man who rapidly starts giving orders to civilians to one who gradually begins to believe local superstitions about the 'vorvolaka' an undead creature of the night and eventually feels he has been smitten by the vorvolaka. Karloff was not Lewton's ideal choice for this film and he does act more in the expressionless Frankenstein vein for the first half hour before he warms to his character. The rest of the cast is appropriately unknown lending more importance to the settings and atmosphere. This is definitely enjoyable for fans of the Val Lewton-Jacque Tourneur collaborations albeit not as good.
This time the setting is an almost deserted Greek island that serves as a cemetery and on which Greek General Boris Karloff (miscast but enjoyable) finds himself stuck with a plague outbreak while his troops are fighting the Ottomans during the Balkan War of 1912. He goes from being a cold, logical and hard man who rapidly starts giving orders to civilians to one who gradually begins to believe local superstitions about the 'vorvolaka' an undead creature of the night and eventually feels he has been smitten by the vorvolaka. Karloff was not Lewton's ideal choice for this film and he does act more in the expressionless Frankenstein vein for the first half hour before he warms to his character. The rest of the cast is appropriately unknown lending more importance to the settings and atmosphere. This is definitely enjoyable for fans of the Val Lewton-Jacque Tourneur collaborations albeit not as good.