Isle of the Dead (1945)
Distributor: Odeon Entertainment
DVD Release Date: 6th June 2011
Directed by: Mark Robson
Starring: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer
Review by: Nia Edwards-Behi
With a title like Isle of the Dead, you might expect a zombie movie, as I certainly did. However, this RKO picture is something completely different, an unusual and atmospheric setting allowing for a very different sort of monster to take centre stage. General Pherides (Boris Karloff), in the midst of the First Balkan War, takes a trip with a fellow soldier to the island where his wife is buried. Pherides’ tactical decisions are questioned, his decisions deemed inconsiderate of the lives of his men. Arriving on the island, the two men discover that its people are quarantined, but while some residents fear that a plague is rampant, others fear a more supernatural cause of death.
I admit, I had to look up the First Balkan War. The conflict doesn’t feature all that heavily in the film, but rather provides a backdrop for the exploration of two monsters: one human, one not so much. Karloff gives a pitch-perfect performance as Pherides, he’s uptight, weary and mean, but somehow likeable. Maddened by grief and seclusion, Karloff presents a sad, paranoid shell of a man with an understated and sympathetic performance.
Isle of the Dead isn’t a particularly frightening film, but it is highly atmospheric. Like many other Val Lewton pictures, the film is psychologically twisted, presenting fearful characters and tense settings effectively and concisely. Like Lewton’s own Cat People, central to Isle of the Dead is the mysterious female creature, the Greek vorvolakas. A sort of psychic vampire, one of the island’s inhabitants is accused of being such a creature, an accusation she vehemently denies. The vorvolakas is vampiric in a similar way to the wurdulak (an alternative name for the Greek creature being vurdulakas) – this is no Dracula, no Carmilla. There is dread and menace and death in the air. If Thea (Ellen Drew) truly is a vorvolakas, it is an inherent part of her nature, and not something she has chosen to be – just as Pherides’ paranoia and grief are inherent to his.
Had Isle of the Dead used a more traditional idea of the vampire, and a more familiar setting, it might not have been so interesting a film – not that the setting looks particularly like Greece, aside from the occasional costume. The elemental nature emphasised in the vorvolakas is beautifully reflected in the film’s formal construction, perhaps most notably so in a great montage of hands being washed in clear water cutting to a burning ritual fire. The best shot of the entire film might even be the first: a hunched Pherides washes his hands as the camera pans out to reveal the shadows of his men arguing against the tent wall behind him. Establishing a not-quite-right atmosphere from the outset, Pherides’ downfall seems inevitable.
Isle of the Dead is an enjoyable film, not nearly as hokey as its title suggests. Elevated perhaps by Karloff and Lewton’s involvement, Isle of the Dead is the sort of film you need to draw the curtains for. It leaves a slight feeling of unease in its wake, much like the vorvlakas herself.