- Isle of the Dead asks just a little too much of its audience, even by the standards of classic horror films. For instance, we are expected to accept that the otherwise stolid General Pherides (Boris Karloff) transforms into a superstitious lunatic in the midst of a plague outbreak. Similarly, the film intends for us to see nothing unusual about Mrs. Mary St. Aubyn (Katherine Emery) expressing a deep-seated fear of being buried alive shortly before exactly this event occurs. Mrs. St. Aubyn subsequently goes completely insane, initiating a killing spree that utilizes a replica of Poseidon's trident. The connection to Greek mythology arrives via a Swiss man named Albrecht (Jason Robards Sr.), who makes sacrifices to Hermes to prove a point about a physician's (Alan Napier) faith in modern medicine. Like I said, the film asks a lot.
- Directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton, Isle of the Dead is at least watchable in the way that all of the Lewton horror pictures are. The highlight of the film is certainly Boris Karloff, whose unexpectedly gentle voice always provided a wonderful contrast with his imposing countenance. The forced romance between the film's nominal leads (Marc Cramer and Ellen Drew) feels about as natural as being buried alive, and the old crone's (Helene Thimig) warnings about the vampiric vorvolaka veer into accidental comedy. I might have been able to choke down one or even two of these odd details, but the film's accumulated implausibility is just too much to take.
- This is probably one of the few films to have been inspired by a painting (by Bocklin), and apparently its music incorporates elements of a Rachmaninoff piece based on the painting, too.
