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Kooshmeister
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
 Posted - 08/27/2005 : 9:19:39 PM
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Note: Like many of my other reviews I also posted this review to agonybooth.com's forums, but I believe in sharing so I figured I'd post it here too for those who only visit these forums in particular.
This is a movie I've wanted to watch for a long, long time. Ever since I read about it on various sci-fi websites I became obsessed with Island of Terror, also known as Night of the Silicates, The Night the Creatures Came, and, according to a friend in the UK, Bonesucking Creepers, as well as seemingly a hundred alternate (and icnreasingly silly) titles.
But, being as lazy and forgetful as I am, I constantly put off buying a copy until another friend bought me the movie on VHS as an early birthday present this year. I've watched it three times already and damn if it isn't one of the best 60s horror/sci-fi films I've seen in a long, long time. Sure it has its silly, but overall the acting and the story were solid enough to allow me to overlook this. :)
Island of Terror
1966, Planet Film Productions
The Characters:
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-Dr. David West: Our hero, a young bone specialist/ladies' man whom both Brian Stanley and Reginald Landers call upon for help. Played by Edward Judd.
-Dr. Brian Stanley: An old friend and colleague of David West's, Brian Stanley is a famous pathologist whose expertise is sought by Reginald Landers. Played by... gasp! Peter Cushing!
-Toni Merrill: West's jetsetter girlfriend and our resident damsel-in-distress. She apparently got together with West when she purposefully crashed her car just to meet him! Played by Carole Gray.
-Dr. Reginald Landers: The town doctor on Petrie's Island, who first discovers the whole "no bones" problem. Played by Eddie Byrne.
-Constable John Harris: The law on Petrie's Island, whose job is really boring until the dead bodies start cropping up. Likes chess and is very squeamish. Played by Sam Kydd.
-Roger Campbell: The "boss" of Petrie's Island. I'm trying to figure out what his official title is, but I'm guessing he's pretty much the mayor. Seems slow and dumb but is actually pretty intelligent and resourceful. Played by Niall MacGinnis.
-Peter Argyle: The local general store owner on Petrie's Island. Seems to be Boss Campbell's second-in-command in an unofficial capacity. Played by James Caffrey.
-Ian Bellows: Victim number one, ladies and gentlemen! Ian Bellows is a farmer on Petrie's Island and wanders into a cave to investigate a strange noise. Bad move, Ian. Played by Liam Gaffney.
-Halsey, Dunley, and Morton: Some of the islanders. Don't know much about Dunley and Morton, but Halsey is the typical pessimistic wimpy guy. Played by Keith Bell, Roger Heathcote, and Shay Gorman, respectively.
-Dr. Lawrence Phillips: Our resident "mad" scientist, a famous cancer researcher. Played by Peter Forbes-Robertson.
-The Silicates: A bunch of really, really nasty little critters that resemble green slugs with tentacles and have a taste for bones.
-The Story:
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We begin on Petrie's Island, a remote island off the coast of Ireland (or so we're told; I can't find anything online to indicate it's a real island). Apparently the island was only recently modernized in the last twenty or thirty years because when the weekly supply ship comes in, farmer Ian Bellows is talking with store owner Peter Argyle about the fact the government hasn't installed their telephones despite promising to do so for about two years now.
We're also introduced to the island's "boss," Roger Campbell, the local policeman Constable John Harris, and town physician Dr. Reginald Landers. Neither of the former two characters are too important right now as most of the talking goes on between Ian Bellows, Peter Argyle, and Dr. Landers. Anyways the men gossip (I thought that was women's job?) about a "Dr. Phillips," who we see with one of his assistants at the docks to take possession of a wooden crate marked "Chemical Equipment."
It seems Phillips recently came to Petrie's and set up shop in the spooky old mansion/castle located on the northern point of the island. And he's very reclusive and secretive, too. The other men find this odd, but Landers says that all researchers are like that. There's more complaining about the lack of phone service before we see Phillips and his assistant load the crate into a Land Rover and drive off.
And we have our first editing mistake of the film as Dr. Phillips' assistant, after lighting a pipe, puts his matchbook back into his coat pocket twice.
Cut to Phillips' high-tech laboratory. We see that it comes stocked with the usual assortment of beakers, test tubes, and flasks, as well as three very large fish tanks filled with a yellowish liquid. Dr. Phillips and another assistant discuss their experiments, using a lot of techno-babble I don't understand and sounds made-up anyway. The basic gist is that they're doing cancer research and Phillips thinks they're close to finding a cure for it. He hopes to use the newly-arrived equipment to speed their work up.
The assistant warns against this, as they're working in conjunction with similar laboratories in Rome, New York, and Tokyo. Phillips waves him off, saying he sent his colleagues in Italy, America, and Japan a notice that morning of his intentions to continue, and advising them to do the same. After saying he's waited years for this, they start the experiment. There's a bright flash of red, the sound of breaking glass, and brief glimpses of dead bodies littering the floor as the opening credits kick in.
And since this movie was made in the 60s, the credits are very psychadelic. Yeah, baby, yeah! Our movie is Island of Terror, starring Edward Judd, Peter Cushing, Carole Gray, and Eddie Byrne. So far we've only seen Eddie Byrne as Dr. Reginald Landers.
After the credits come to a close we find Ian Bellows, the farmer, walking home that night in the dark. He suddenly hears an indescribably eerie, warbling electronic sound coming from a cave nearby, and goes to investigate. No sooner has he disappeared into the cave than we hear him scream in agony. His screams are cut off and we hear disgusting slurping sounds, like somebody sucking up a chocolate milkshake.
Cut to Constable John Harris' house. There's a knock at the door, and the officer admits a woman he calls Mrs. Bellows, Ian's wife. She's been crying. He sits her down and asks her to tell him what's wrong, and she says her husband has gone missing and she can't find him anywhere. She wants the constable to look for him. Harris agrees, but tries to console her and assure her nothing has happened to Ian.
Later, Constable Harris rides his bicycle out to the northern part of Farmer Bellows' land, which earlier dialogue revealed is not far from Dr. Phillips' castle. Uh-oh.
Harris wanders around for a bit, calling the man's name, and eventually spies him laying just inside the entrance of the cave. He goes over and prods the body with his nightstick, and his appalled at how soft and mushy it seems. Repulsed, he rushes to Dr. Landers' house and informs him of his ghastly find. Landers is incredulous at first but can see how distressed the policeman is, and agrees to go have a look.
Harris also gets one of my favorite creepy lines in the film, something along these lines: "Doctor, you know I'm not a man who's easily shaken. But, by all that's holy, I've just seen something I can't be sure about. I...I think it's Ian Bellows..."
Landers examines the body briefly and says from the looks of it there's no bones in it, and although it's wearing Ian Bellows' clothes he's not even sure it even is Ian. He and Harris take the body to the local clinic where Landers performs an autopsy. He discover's it is Ian Bellows by identifying a surgical scar and birth mark. He also ascertains that, indeed, there are no bones in the man's body.
After trying to think of a way to tell poor Mrs. Bellows about her husband, Landers instructs Harris to try and see Dr. Phillips while he takes the island's launch to the mainland, to see a man named Dr. Brian Stanley in London. Stanley, he reveals, is a renowned pathologist who teaches at "the university." Landers also warns Harris not to tell anyone about the state of Ian Bellows' corpse... especially not his wife.
Cut to "the university" (I don't know how many universities and colleges there are in London so I don't know which one this is supposed to be) where we find Brian Stanley, played by Peter Cushing, finishing up a lecture on... er, something. He just tells his students he's hoped they've learned something before dismissing them.
Another teacher shows Dr. Landers into the classroom and he and Stanley shake hands. When asked what it is he wants, Landers cuts right to the chase and asks him if he knows of a disease that can completely dissolve human bone. Stanley, incredulous, says he hasn't, and is shocked when told the doctor has got a boneless corpse back in the morgue on Petrie's Island. Seeing how desperate Landers is Stanley agrees to help, and after striking out at the university's library the two decide to go and visit a close colleague of Stanley's, Dr. David West.
We go now to Dr. West's swingin' 60s shag pad! West himself - slightly drunk at the moment - is played by Edward Judd. That's four stars down, one to go. We meet our fourth and final top-billed star in the form of Carole Gray, who plays West's girlfriend, Toni Merrill.
Toni comes in wearing nothing but one of West's shirts, because, we're told, he's "better with a scalpel than he is a bottle opener" and spilled champagne onto her dress while trying to open it. What a goof. As they sit on his sofa they have some quasi-romantic banter that reveals West is a bone specialist, and they met when Toni, who is the daughter of a wealthy London businessman, crashed her sports car and broke her leg. She's all better now, though, and after some more playful banter whereupon she subtly teases him about whether or not he can get it up, they're interrupted by the doorbell.
He tells her she can put on one of his bathrobes while he goes to answer the door, and voila, it's Stanley and Landers. He lets them in and introductions are made. Stanley says Landers has an interesting problem for West, to which West replies he already has an "interesting problem," whereupon Toni re-emerges wearing his bathrobe.
Initially West makes fun of them for what they came to talk to him about. "Oh, yes, that's a very common problem..." When Landers, all business it seems, protests, West starts taking them seriously. Now we get playful banter between him and Stanley as Stanley suggests if West comes along they'll name the newly discovered disease after him. West retorts that he's astounded by Stanley's show of humility. "They've named so many after me it gets quite confusing," Stanley insists.
For some reason Landers keeps insisting there's "not much time," and Stanley agrees and says he was going to accompany Landers back to Petrie's Island to examine Ian Bellows' body and asks if West wants to come or not. Now all business, West asks if there were any wounds on the body, and whether Ian Bellows had any unusual medical history. Landers responds in the negative to both, stating Bellows was a very strong, healthy man.
Ultimately West decides to go along, too. Instead of taking the launch, Landers and Stanley want to take a plane. Suddenly Toni butts into the conversation and offers the use of her father's private helicopter. This sounds great, but there's a catch. "I knew it," West moans, and Toni demands to come along. West tries only once to change her mind, but she stipulates it's the only way she'll let them use the 'copter.
Cut to the airfield. The helicopter pilot explains that, whoops, Toni's father will need the helicopter first thing tomorrow morning, so in other words he can't park on the island and wait for them. He can only drop them off and then fly back home immediately. It's "too late" to make other arrangements, so they decide to risk, although Stanley seems to think a week stuck on Petrie's Island will be boring and asks what Napoleon did while he was there (?!).
West responds that Napoleon invented Solitaire, leadng to this exchange between Toni and Stanley: she insists she knows a game that's more fun, and Stanley asks, "Can three play?" Oy. So they board the helicopter and it takes off.
It's nighttime (or early morning, one) when they arrive at Petrie's Island, and Constable Harris, after lighting a signal fire to give the pilot an idea of where to touch down, greets Landers and the three mainlanders as they disembark from the 'copter, which immediately takes off. Landers asks if Harris has been able to get in touch with Dr. Phillips, but the constable says the scientist won't answer the door.
West, overhearing Phillips' name, asks if he means Dr. Lawrence Phillips, and they tell him yes. When asked by Toni, West explains that Phillips is a famous researcher specializing in the study of cancer. Not that this has anything to do with what happened to Ian Bellows. Nope. Uh-uh. No way.
Toni proceeds to vanish completely from the movie for a good while, as we follow West and Stanley around. They accompany Landers back to the clinic the following day and examine Ian Bellows' corpse.
More autopsying on Farmer Bellows, to the point where I wonder if there'll be anything left of him for the funeral. Our three medical experts discover microscopic holes in Bellows' skin and argue about what this means. Landers thinks it means something went into the body, while West thinks it means something came out of it. Stanley suggests they might both be right, that something may have injected a powerful enzyme that dissolve calcium phosphate, the major component of bone matter. It's CSI: Petrie's Island!
West whines that the clinic doesn't have sophisticated enough equipment for them to use, and Landers brings up Dr. Phillips again but doubts he'll see them. Stanley asserts himself and says he'll make Phillips see them. By this time night has fallen. The electricity almost winks out and Landers explains that the island's generator has been on the fritz. They leave a note for Constable Harris telling him where they went, then pile into Landers' car and drive out to the old spooky mansion.
They ring the doorbell but get no answer. West wants to keep trying but Landers says it's no use, so then Stanley gets a flashlight and goes around the side of the house looking for an open window. He finds one and climbs in, intending to go around to the front door and let his friends in. The inside of the house is spooky and dark, and while crossing a larg dining room he almost trips over a dead body on the floor. The corpse turns out to be in the same condition as Ian Bellows. Uh-oh.
I should add from here on in this section of the movie had to have been the inspiration for parts of the first Resident Evil game. The mansion, the dining room, and, shortly, the underground lab. Either that or it's an amazing coincidence.
Stanley then does the most intelligent thing I've ever seen a character do in a horror movie: he turns on the lights. He also turns on the lights on the front of the house, and after unlocking the front door and letting West and Landers in he shows them the body. They then start searching for the laboratory. They try a few rooms with no luck, and then Stanley discovers one door that opens into a stairwell and calls the others over. They then head down.
The stairs lead down to an almost medieval stone masonry hallway/dungeon type deal. At the bottom is a long curved hallway with three doors: one marked "KEEP OUT! Radioactive Materials", one marked "Laboratory," and a final one marked "Test Animals." Oh man, this is SO Resident Evil I'm wondering if Planet Film Productions shouldn't sue Capcom.
First they try the "KEEP OUT!" room, but that turns out be a bad place to go since it's filled with steam and smoke and red lights. Apparently there's lots of radioactive materials stored in there. Not that the sign on the door was any indication. After commenting that Phillips has "as much equipment as I have at the university," Stanley leads the way through the door marked "Laboratory." This turns out to be - yup, you guessed it - the lab from the beginning.
There's lots of broken glass and all but one of the big fish tanks has been broken open from the inside. Oh, and Dr. Phillips and his assistant are laying dead on the floor, their bones all sucked out. So much for him.
It looks like our heroes have reached a dead-end, although since Phillips and his colleagues never had any direct contact with Ian Bellows they can rule out the possibility of a contagious disease. As to the destruction of the lab, West theorizes, "Either they were fighting something... or the death throes were incredibly violent." They decide to collect and study Phillips' notes, thinking that maybe there's a connection between the boneless dead bodies and whatever it was Phillips was trying to do.
By the time they've gathered up all the notebooks and papers from around the lab and left, it's morning. Meanwhile we join another farmer whose name is never revealed. He's walking somewhere when he notices something odd in one of his fields and rushes over to investigate. It turns out to be a horse, or what was once a horse. He prods it with his foot and it's all mushy. Freaking out, he runs to Constable Harris' house.
He interrupts Harris having breakfast and tells him about the boneless equine, which makes Harris remember the note from the doctors he found at the clinic. After telling the farmer note to tell anyone about the horse, he puts his uniform on and bikes out to the spooky old mansion.
Meanwhile, West, Stanley, and Landers return to the local inn where the visiting doctors are staying. They dump the notes onto the nearest table and set immediately to work, but then Landers reasons they should tell Constable Harris they're not at the mansion anymore and leaves to do just that while West and Stanley start reading over the notes.
Back at the mansion, Harris finds the door open and goes inside. Entering the dining room he finds the dead guy on the floor and starts looking around for the doctors in a weirdly long sequence that eventually has him venturing down into the basement. He avoids the "KEEP OUT!" room and is about to enter the door marked "Laboratory" when he hears the same warbling, electronic sound we heard coming out of the cave earlier. It seems to be coming from the final door in the hall. The one marked "Test Animals."
He goes over and nudges the door open to discover the room is filled with cages. The moment he walks in, a green tentacle thing drops down and wraps around his neck. He screams and we cut away to Dr. Landers pulling up outside the (now almost certainly dead) constable's house. After failing to get an answer he drives down to the docks and happens upon Peter Argyle (the store owner, remember?) talking with the farmer who found the dead horse.
Despite the fact Harris told him to keep mum about it, as Landers approaches that's precisely what he's telling Argyle. Landers asks them if they've seen the constable, and the farmer tells him that Harris went up to the mansion looking for him, West, and Stanley not too long ago. He also tells Landers about the dead horse (what part of "Tell nobody" doesn't this guy understand?), and Landers realizes his farm is way on the other side of the island from the mansion. He then hurries off, leaving Argyle and the farmer stumped.
The farmer thinks something strange is going on, and Argyle seems to agree and says he's going to go speak to Boss Campbell about it. We then cut to Campbell's house as he and Argyle are leaving, with the store owner asking the boss what he plans to do about all the weird crap that's been going down. Campbell thinks for a moment and then says they should round up the other farmers and ask them if they've been having similar problems, then to see Landers about it.
Landers returns to the inn to report the news about the dead horse and the misunderstanding that sent Constable Harris to the mansion. In the meantime, West and Stanley have gotten far enough into Dr. Phillips' notes to know that the late scientist was indeed doing cancer-related research, apparently trying to grow a living organism to combat the cancerous cells, but they haven't gotten far enough into them to discover what went wrong or why.
It's at this point that Toni reenters the movie, coming downstairs bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and greeting the three haggard men, asking them if they've been up all night.
Landers suggests they go see the dead horse, then go and get Constable Harris. West and Stanley agree, but Toni wants to come. Oy. West attempts to talk her out of it, saying that all signs point to some kind of dangerous animal that escaped from that mansion, and that going back there may not be safe.
Toni, for her part, says that if there are some kinds of dangerous creatures running loose on the island, she doesn't want to be left alone. |
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Kooshmeister
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2005 : 9:23:34 PM
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Ultimately, West agrees to let Toni come along, apparently just to shut her up. We then cut to her sitting in Landers' car as the three men examine the boneless horse a few yards away. Guess West made her stay in the car. Suddenly she hears that warbling, electronic sound, and something thuds onto the roof of the car, and then she turns and sees something big, green, and ooky slither down the rear window and screams. The others come running, but by that point the thing has vanished.
Being a woman in a horror movie, Toni can't coherantly explain what it was she saw despite West's repeated insistences that "it's important!" All she does is whine and scream "I don't know!" a lot. She does, however, tell them it was "grayish," which is a blatant lie, as it was quite obviously green. Stanley then approaches a cluster of boulders nearby where, I'm assuming, he thinks the creature has hidden itself, but West calls him back.
West doesn't think they should take any chances. "Yes, especially with me!" insists Stanley, which I find a bit odd considering just a moment ago he was the one who was all about going over there. Landers suggests they find Harris and get back to town post-haste, so everyone piles into the car and drives out to the old spooky mansion again.
They find Harris' bicycle and the front door open. Entering the house they call out for him and then proceed immediately down into the basement. Landers spies he unfortunate constable's corpse on the floor through the now-open "Test Animals" door and everyone rushes over, only to stop as they hear that familiar strange electronic sound again.
A lone green tentacle snakes around the corner of the doorframe, reaching for them. Startled and definitely weirded out everyone backs up as one, and we're about to get our first look at the movie's feature monsters.
This is it. This is why I wanted this movie. And man, how it delivers. There are so many ways this could have gone wrong, but the scene had me when they all jumped back together like I described, leaping instinctively away from the tentacle with expressions of "What the hell?!" written all over their faces. It's one of the best movie monster reveals I've ever seen, just because of the mood.
A two-foot tall lumpy green mass which slides along like a slug and has a long, green tentacle extending from the front of the body, slithers out of the room and into the hallway. Stanley asks what it is and, not surprisingly, no one answers. As the warbling creature approaches, West wisely suggests they run. They turn and run back down the hallway only to find a second creature between them and the staircase!
Everyone backs up against the far wall and Landers grabs an emergency fire axe off the wall behind him. The creatures continue to move towards them and they decide it's now or never, they start approaching the stairs, Landers wielding the axe. Despite Stanley's warnings not to get too close he walks right up to the creature and swings the axe. It thunks uselessly into the creature's back.
The monster responds to this by grabbing Landers' ankle with its tentacle, and Landers drops the axe and starts screaming bloody murder. He flops over on top of the creature (!) and writhes and screams before finally dying and we hear the familiar sucking sounds as Toni screams in horror and our three remaining heroes are right back where they started, up against the wall again.
Suddenly, the creatures stop and their tentacles retract into themselves. As they look on in shock, the two creatures begin to divide into four creatures, secreting a really gross mass of what looks like pulpy orange juice and wet noodles as they do so. After this is over with the electronic warbling stops and the creatures sit perfectly still. Playing Captain Obvious, Stanley exclaims, "They divided!"
He carefully steps around the one(s?) that killed Landers (who by the way is not laying where we saw him fall, in fact he could only be where he is if the creature threw him, which did not happen; the editor for this movie needs to be fired), picking up the axe along the way for some reason, and makes it safely to the stairs and then calls for West and Toni to follow. Toni refuses to budge from where she is, and West tells her, truthfully, that they don't know how much longer the things will remain static like this and that now is their only chance.
She finally screams that she's afraid, to which West says, with total convinction, "So am I!" He grabs her by the wrist and RUNS past the creatures, then rushes up the stairs after Stanley, dragging Toni with him.
The run outside the mansion to hear the electronic sounds emananting from all around the surrounding forest. Stanley, apparently realizing the axe is, erm, kind of useless, throws it down and they all run and get into the car. Uh-oh! It won't start!
Cursing, West gets out and pops the hood, and starts trying to fix the engine. From inside the car, Toni and Stanley see a creature approaching from a nearby field and yell for West to hurry up. West responds by practically screaming in genuine fear, "I'M TRYING!!!" Hoo-boy, the actors really sell the urgency here. Finally he gets the engine going, then jumps back behind the wheel, and burns rubber.
We cut back to town now. A random islander is pacing back and forth impatiently outside of Peter Argyle's store. He even pounds on the door once with his fist in frustration. He hears an approaching car and sees Boss Campbell and Argyle drive up in a Land Rover similar to the one Phillips had earlier (and given the low budget I'm betting it's the same car). He demands to know why the store isn't open and that he wants his "goods." Argyle replies the store is closed until further notice and asks the man if he's seen Dr. Landers. The guy replies he saw Landers leave the inn earlier with two men and a woman.
Argyle and Campbell decide to head back to the inn, then. As they head back to their car, the would-be customer shouts after them, "What about my goods?"
We cut back to the inn where we see West put some white powder into a glass of water, then carry it over to Toni who is in bed. Despite the fact she seems pretty relaxed, West insists she drink the stuff because it'll help her sleep. She does so, and as she gets sleepier and sleepier she mumbles about how awful it was seeing Dr. Landers die. "I've never seen anyone die before," she says, then adds she's never seen anything that terrible, to which West replies that he hasn't either.
He then says he's sorry he brought her here, but she him reminds she came of her own volition. After this she asks if he's still sorry he brought her here, then falls asleep. He kisses her on the forehead and then tucks her in and leave the room. You know, normally romantic relationships in these types of movies seem forced, fake, and shoehorned into the plot. While this one is still shoehorned (there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why Toni even wanted to come along in the first place), I never find any of the moments between her and West unbearably fake.
West heads downstairs where he finds Stanley drinking a tall glass of beer and still going over Phillips' notes. He explains he gave Toni a sedative, and Stanley says he needed one himself, indicating the beer.
Apparently our doctor friends didn't have the notes organized properly, but Stanley has done that now. I may skimp on a few details here but that's because I'm distracted and it takes me more than three viewings to fully memorize everything in a movie. But anyway Stanley has discovered that the last entry made by Phillips was a personal note talking about his pet Great Dane becoming sick after getting an accidental overdose of radiation from the lab. West finds this odd because they didn't find a dog at the mansion.
In fact, mention of radiation crops up several times in the notes, and West and Stanley seem to infer that this had something to do with the creation of the creatures.
It's at this point that Boss Campbell and Peter Argyle come in. Seeing these two strangers poring over papers and notebooks they infer that they're the ones the dumbass guy at the store was talking about and approach them. Introductions are made, and Campbell demands to know where Dr. Landers is. West and Stanley exchange uneasy glances before West explains he was killed, and that Campbell had better sit down. He admits that what he's got to say may sound outlandish, but he lays it out straight and says, basically, there's dangerous, seemingly indestructible creatures loose on Petrie's Island.
Needless to say, Campbell and Argyle stare at them like they're nuts. Well, actually, only Argyle does. Campbell is so utterly laid back about everything he takes it in stride.
West insists they're not insane and explains that the creatures (despite my referring to them as Silicates they've yet to name them) are dividing geometrically, and that they don't know how many are slithering around on the island, and stresses that they'll need Campbell's help if Petrie's Island is to survive. Argyle says it's all a bit hard to swallow, but Campbell, cool as a cucumber, simply asks what it is they need, because, as it turns out, that one farmer's horse is not the first dead, boneless animal that's been discovered.
West says first he wants Campbell to get about ten or twenty reliable men, and to arrange for everyone in town to come down to the meeting hall so he and Stanley can explain the situation to them. In a morbidly humorous little example of the fact that so much is going on some details have slipped our heroes' minds, they initially neglect to mention the death of Constable Harris, too, until Campbell suggests informing him about the monsters, since he's the law and all. "You're a bit late," Stanley says darkly.
As he and Argyle go to leave Campbell pauses to ask precisely how many of the creatures there are, but West and Stanley aren't sure so they shoo him and Argyle away before returning to discussing experiments and stuff. And now I knew they're just spouting nonsense during this part because it doesn't ever pertain to anything else at all in the entire movie.
Cut to the meeting hall. All the townspeople are filing in as Campbell, onstage, has just finished explaining everything that West and Stanley told him. Speak of the devil, they come in at this point with Toni, who remains in the audience as the two scientists ascend the stage and address the yokels. It's here that they finally dub the animals "Silicates", although Stanley pronounces it like "Sili-ketts", and we finally get the whole story on Dr. Phillips' doomed experiments.
Basically Phillips was trying to accomplish two things: one, to better understand the growth of cancer he was trying to grow living cells artificially, and two, he was also trying to design a living cell that would attack the cancer and destroy it (which was revealed earlier).
Originally he wanted to try this using carbon cells, but that failed so he tried silicon cells, and, voila, the Silicates. After reiterating that the Silicates divide geometrically, West and Stanley explain that they think there are a total of 64 Silicates on Petrie's Island as they speak. If the Silicates keep dividing every six hours, by midnight there'll be over a hundred of them, and by the end of the week, a million.
They also say they want everyone to remain in the meeting hall until further notice, because if all else fails they'll just have to cut off the Silicates' food supply and hope they die of starvation really quickly.
Later, West, Stanley, and Toni meet with Campbell and the ten good men he selected, as they start formulating a battle plan. They'll send some men to scout the island; two more guys are selected by Campbell to round up the cattle on the island and bring them into the pens in town that he owns, in order to keep the Silicates from getting them. Their basic plan is that once they find the Silicates, they'll take guns and bombs and just throw whatever they've got at them and see what that does. Hey, it may not be scientific but until now all they've had to go on is one swing of an axe.
Everyone sets out, although of course Toni stays behind, but she has the important job of ensuring that the villagers don't panic. The fact that the generator keeps threatening to konk out on everyone isn't helping matters. West promises Toni he'll come back, whether they've killed the Silicates or not.
It isn't long before the little buggers are found, at least a few of them, clustered in a grove of trees somewhere on the island, sliding around and waving their tentacles and emitting their high-pitched warbling. West, Stanley, and some of the islanders are observing them, awaiting the arrival of Campbell and Argyle and the stuff they need. Stanley says he counts 25 Silicates in the grove altogether, and then Campbell and Argyle drive up in their Land Rover, which contains rifles, ammunition, wooden boxes labeled "Dynamite," and other goodies, including geiger counters. Exactly where these came from is never revealed, but we do learn Stanley is the one who wanted them.
Apparently he thinks the Silicates themselves may prove to be radioactive, and so they should of course take steps to protect themselves from radiation poisoning. Better safe than sorry, I guess. Rifles, ammo, and molotov cocktails (referred to as "petrol bombs") are passed out among the men as everyone moves towards the advancing Silicates. West and Stanley open things up by shooting at the nearest of the beasties with their rifles to no effect.
Stanley points out the painfully obvious fact that the Silicates are really slow, and so he goes over to one with a geiger counter to try and get a reading. He's almost killed when one creeps up behind him, but West's yelling alerts him. Stanley yelps and runs back over to the safety of the group, grumbling, "Nasty little creatures, aren't they?"
He does say, oddly, that there was no register on the geiger counter, which means the Silicates are not radioactive like he thought. West admits that's good news. It does mean, however, he ordered all thos geiger counters for nothing. Campbell and another guy come forward with the molotov cocktails, and, to my surprise, the other fellow is the farmer who found the boneless horse earlier. The molotovs are lit and thrown, exploding to no effect.
The farmer guy takes two molotovs and says he's going to get closer. I.e., he's gonna go get killed. He tosses the first one and it explodes again to no effect, and as he's lighting the second one, Stanley happens to glance up and see a Silicate in the branches of the tree the farmer is standing under. He and the others alert him to the danger but in typical fashion he just stands there and gawks as the Silicate falls out of the tree and flops down on top of him. Exit nameless farmer with the requisite screaming and sucking sounds as he goes to join his horse.
Deciding it's time to break out the big guns, the boxes of dynamite are opened. Many sticks are lit and thrown by our heroes, but with the same results as the bullets and the molotov cocktails. Nothing seems to hurt them, as West and Stanley so aptly point out. If anything, all it does is make them really, really mad. Even if an explosion occurs right beside them nothing even so much as flips them over.
West and Stanley are about ready to turn and run and have everybody barricade themselves indoors, so as to revert to their backup plan to starve the Silicates, when suddenly some guy we've never seen before (although now that I think about it, it might be the dumbass who was pissed that Argyle's store was closed). He brings news that he's found a dead Silicate.
They ask him if he's sure, and he says it is because it hasn't moved in over twenty minutes after partially eating a dog. Remember Dr. Phillips' missing Great Dane? Radiation overdose? West and Stanley do, too, because that's the first thing that pops into their minds.
They make the guy take them and Campbell to where he found the two dead animals, which turns out to be on the beach. While Campbell and the other fellow maintain a safe distance, West and Stanley cautiously approach the Silicate first. Stanley pokes it with a stick a few times and it does move. Its tentacle is retracted, and it also appears to have vomited a yellowish liquid. It's quite dead. Stanley waves the geiger counter over the Silicate and the reading buries the needle. Highly radioactive, unlike the other, living Silicates. Just to be sure they also use the geiger on the dead dog (represented by a hilariously fake dead puppet) and it, too, is radioactive. Eureka!
They take both the dog and the Silicate back to the clinic to examine them more properly (what happened to the clinic not having the proper equipment, huh, Dr. West?). West briefly announces to the understandably worried townsfolk they found a dead one but that they need to determine precisely what killed it, and, again, West makes Toni promise to keep everyone inside the meeting hall for now. |
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Kooshmeister
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2005 : 9:29:26 PM
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Examining the two dead animals reveals two very important things. Number one, that the Silicates have an outer shell just beneath their slimey yucky skin that is "impenetrable" (and one review of the movie put forth the theory that, as silicon-based lifeforms, the Silicates must have a genetic makeup similar to rocks, which would explain a lot about why they're so damn difficult to hurt with outside force).
As for the dog, it's discovered that the specific type of radiation it got contaminated with is called Strontium-90, a kind of isotope that, at least according to this movie, settles exclusively in bone matter. I've actually checked around the Web and found out that there is actually something called Strontium-90, but as I haven't done enough research on it I won't pretend to know whether or not the movie's depiction of it is even close to accurate. But for what it's worth, it makes perfect sense within the confines of the story, and, to me, that's all that really matters.
So now West and Stanley hatch themselves a plan. There must be more Strontium-90 back up at the mansion. And they have a lot of cows close at hand. Our two scientist heroes tell Campbell and Argyle to make sure nothing happens to the cows until they return. And, in the event that they don't return, West and Stanley make it a priority to tell Campbell and Argyle how to get the Strontium-90 and do it themselves.
I rather liked this part. West and Stanley are well aware they might die, and they do not want to die being the only ones who can save the island. Of course, they're the heroes so they end up succeeding, but it was just a nice little touch in a world full of movies where the main heroes are so conceited and sure of themselves they risk dying being the only ones with the knowledge to save the world. Not West and Stanley. They know they're probably heading off to die, and they just want to, y'know, pass the knowledge, just in case.
West and Stanley take the car and drive out to the mansion again. En route they pause briefly to observe more Silicates in the woods on the side of the road, and realize they're getting closer to the town so they don't have much time. West, at the wheel, floors it and they get to the mansion in record time. In another nice bit among several in the movie, Stanley says he doesn't want to go down into "that cellar" again, but go they must.
They proceed cautiously down the stairs but don't see any Silicates. Just the same, they don't dawdle and unlock the "KEEP OUT!" room and go inside knowing that for now they're safe since the Silicates won't come in this room. They conclude that Phillips kept the isotopes on hand in order to inject them into the test animals (for what reasons I'm not sure, but I'm not a scientist so what do I know?) and find a weird-looking gun that looks like it's used for cattle vaccinations. Bingo.
And here's where the movie partially derails. In order to get to and safely handle the isotopes, West and Stanley have to don radiation suits, right? Well, in lieu of radiation suits they done these big clear plastic things that are clearly designed for germ warfare or something along those lines. In K-19: The Widowmaker, this mix-up spelled death for some of the cast, but here West and Stanley survive and handle the isotopes without a problem.
Even funnier is we're treated to a very long sequence of them putting them on. This, combined with the long and ultimately pointless sequence of Constable Harris retracing the doctors' steps through the mansion as well as one or two other scenes like the helicopter takeoff earlier, makes me suspect they just had to pad out the running time somehow.
So anyway they put on the, er, radiation suits and open the sealed cabinet thingie with is filled with canisters bearing the biohazard symbol. West finds the one for Strontium-90 and gets it out, and then Stanley carefully removes the isotope thingie from inside it using a pair of tongs and loads it safely into the vaccination gun. Just for suspense, there's one or two moments where it looks like he's gonna have butterfingers.
The vaccination gun is then put into a small silver case and after removing their, er, radiation suits West and Stanley are ready to rock and roll. Except that by the time they're already in the hallway and West has already closed and locked the "KEEP OUT!" door he realizes he forgot the special gloves or whatever they'll need to handle the vaccination gun. Oops. Stanley decides to run upstairs and put the case in the car while West goes back for the gloves. Oh, now they split up.
Stanley heads outside and puts the gun case into the trunk and just as he's closing and locking it a Silicate appears out of nowhere and grabs him by the hand with its tentacle. By now West has the gloves and, hearing Stanley's screams, rushes outside to find his friend writing on the ground with the Silicate already trying to slurp up his arm. He then sees the axe Stanley threw down on the doorstep before.
All jokes aside, it's a nice little bit of continuity. I mean, who in the audience would think back that far in the movie and remember the axe Stanley just carelessly tossed aside?
So West grabs the axe, but we've already established axes don't hurt them, and Stanley realizes what West is think. West gets a nice moment where he chokes up and says, "I can't!" To which Stanley screams "You must!" West swings the axe, and cuts off Stanley's hand, letting the damn Silicate have it. What really shocked me is they show it. I was expecting them to maybe show West swing the axe and cut the hand off OFF-SCREEN and then immediately cut (no pun intended) to the surviving Stanley sans his hand. Hell no, they show the axe lop the hand off and blood squirting out.
West then grabs Stanley, who is understandably kinda bleeding everywhere, and drags him into the relative safety of the car where he ties a tournaquite (how do you spell that anyway?) to stop the bleeding. But they're not out of the woods yet, as West must now get back out of the car, avoid the Silicate that's still hanging around, and the get the keys from where Stanley left them: still in the trunk's keyhole. Get the keys he does, and for final time they burn rubber away for that damn spooky mansion.
Once back in town his first priority is to get Stanley to the clinic. With that accomplished, he takes the vaccination gun (using the special gloves, mind you) and accompanies Campbell to the pens where the cows are. There's a great sense of the fact West doesn't want to do this to these cows, but he kinda has no other choice, and Campbell has his men lead the cows by one at a time so West can inject them with the Strontium-90.
But there's a problem. There's not enough Strontium-90 for all the cows. He has the halve the dosage on the last couple, and Campbell wonders whether that will make a difference. West says he's not sure, and that they'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, Argyle is having the villagers set up bright lights around the meeting hall, which is right across the way from the cow pen, knowing it'll attract the Silicates. Campbell is worried this will be a strain on the already wonky generator, but once again, they don't really have much of a choice.
Campbell gets another good, simply, and effectively creepy line when he asks West, point blank, how long it will take for the Strontium-90 to work, if at all. West isn't sure, and Campbell realizes that even if the Silicates eat the contaiminated cattle, they'll attack the meeting hall next if the Strontium-90 doesn't work right away, and he says, "Those things are gonna be all over the building... aren't they?"
West says yes they will be, and that all they can do is wait and pray. He then heads to the clinic to check on Stanley. Campbell remains in the main room (apparently the clinic and the meeting hall are adjoined by a hallway, I just now noticed) and he tells Argyle to start circulating among the townspeople, to just talk to them, cheer them up, try to keep them from panicking.
In the clinic, Stanley is bandaged up and being tended to by Toni. It seems to keep him from dying he's needed several blood transfusions. Trying to remain in good humor, Stanley weakly says that if gets one more transfusion he'll be a full-blooded Irishman. He also refuses more morphine because he's worried about being addicted to it.
West and Toni retire to the hallway that adjoins the two buildings for some more romantic mushy talk. The basic gist of this is that they love each other, and that West is secretly doubtful they'll all survive. He initially tells Toni the usual stuff, that they'll be okay, not to worry, etc., to which Toni replies that he doesn't really believe that. West sighs and shakes his head and says, no, he doesn't although he wishes he did.
Also somewhere in here Campbell has to chastise a young guy named Halsey who has been spreading crazy talk among the townsfolk, to the effect they should all run for it and try to swim to the mainland. Understandably, Campbelly pulls him aside and tells him if he starts talking like that again he'll beat the crap out of him and then toss him outside with the Silicates. This is similar to Ben's threat to Harry Cooper in Night of the Living Dead, which wouldn't get made until two years later.
Later, West joins Campbell and Argyle outside the meeting hall with binoculars to watch the cattle. Suddenly the Silicates appear and swarm the cattle pen. Because the movie is pretty much low-budget, they couldn't afford to show any more of the slaughter than a few of the Silicates getting into the pen. The rest is just off-screen mooing, electronic warbling, and lots of sucking sounds as West, Campbell, and Argyle look on.
It's over before long, and the men look appropriately disgusted, but what's this? The Silicates divide AFTER feasting on the cattle (again, this is never shown; West just looks through his binoculars and cries, "They're dividing!"). West is horrified. He was hoping the Silicates would divide before eating the cows. Now, the effects of the Strontium-90 will be cut in half and it'll take it longer for it to kill them!
He, Campbell, and Argyle quickly rush back inside and lock the doors as the Silicates approach. West rushes into the clinic to inform Toni and Stanley of this, but before the words are out of his mouth we here the electronic warbling of the Silicates. They're here. He goes back out into the meeting hall, and chaos ensues as the generator finally konks out, plunging the whole building into darkness. Several of the panicked townspeople, led by Halsey, run for the doors, but West and Campbell hold them back by firing rifles into the air, and yell that if they go outside, they will die (that, and Campbell pretty blatantly threatens to shoot anyone who tries to escape, too).
The Silicates start breaking through the windows with their tentacles. Halsey is the first to go as he gets too close to one of the windows and isn't even paying attention because he's covering his ears to block out the sound of the Silicates' shrieking. Another Silicate comes in through the skylight and flops on top of some poor bastard like the farmer earlier and starts a-suckin' his bones out. All hell breaks loose, basically.
It's all very chaotic and difficult to tell what happens exactly. But basically the majority of the townspeople run through the adjacent corridor and seek refuge in the clinic, and now that the Silicates have actually entered the meeting hall, West and Campbell are forced to follow and close and lock the doors. The sad part is there's still some people trapped in the meeting hall, and they can be heard screaming to be let in, but the others can't risk it, especially when a Silicate tentacle smashes through the wood.
The Silicates bust through that door, and soon fill the corridor connecting the meeting hall and the clinic (or so we're told; again, a lot of this is only really implied). Anyone left in the meeting hall itself is a goner. Everyone who is still alive rushes into the clinic, and they close the doors and push anything they can up against it, like medical equipment and a big heavy table of some sort. But the clinic doors have big frosted glass windows, and Silicate tentacles start smashing through these.
West goes and slumps in the corner, with this whole expression that says he realizes his plan failed and now they're all going to die. He rummages through a drawer and finds a syringe of some sort of presumably fast-acting poison, and it's obvious his plan is that they should all commit suicide. It'll be quicker than dying the slow and agonizing way of having their skeletons sucked out. He plans to start with Toni (!).
As West approaches Toni and Stanley with the syringe, Campbell yells for him to stop and points out that the Silicates appear to be weakening. Indeed, their flailing tentacles move slower, and slower, and slower, and then finally either go limp or drop out of side beyond the broken windows of the doors. Their ear-splitting electronic wails die down until all is silent. After a few moments, West asks the others to help him move the stuff away from the doors.
He slowly opens the doors to reveal the hallway is littered with piles upon piles of dead Silicates. He then practically collapses from relief and emotional exhaustion. As the mood gets more relaxed, Stanley tries to lighten things up by saying his hand itches - i.e., the one he no longer has. When West tells him to stop it, he jokes that he should sue West for medical malpractice. West and Toni embrace as everyone celebrates.
Cut to, presumably, the next day or the day after. Toni's father's helicopter finally returns. West, Toni, and Stanley await it with Campbell and Argyle. They discuss the events of the last couple of days, and Campbell says he wishes Dr. Phillips had never done his experiments, but West sticks up for Phillips, saying he wasn't an evil mad scientist. He just wanted to help humanity by curing a disease. He just got too impatient and careless and his experiments resulted in the Silicates.
Stanley asks if they're absolutely certain all the Silicates are dead. Argyle says they're positive because they've searched every inch of the island. The helicopter lands, and before they depart West promises Campbell they'll radio London and ensure that some aid is sent out to Petrie's Island as soon as possible.
As they walk to the 'copter Toni says she can't get the Silicates out of her head. West tells her just not to think about them, and she says that's easier said than done. West sighs and says he knows. West then says he's glad it happened on such a small, remote island. "If it had happened anywhere else, I don't think we would have been able to stop them..."
Cut to Tokyo, Japan. Two Japanese scientists pass one another in the hall, and one approaches a door marked "Director of Research." He knocks on the door and gets no answer. He knocks again. Still nothing. He hears a strange electronic warbling. Stumped, he opens the door and goes inside. Cue horrible screams and sucking sounds.
The End
Well, what can I say? This movie was everything I'd hoped it would be, and then some. The Silicates are kind of goofy, but like the shark in Jaws, by the time they actually appear it doesn't matter what they look like.
I highly reccommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of good-bad sci-fi. This one's a keeper. :) |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2005 : 12:51:10 PM
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I've always liked this movie, it has style. And you're right about the charicters, they do many of the "right things" (Fat lot of good it does them) and when they do something wrong, it's because they are just human, instead of walking "Darwin Awards" who DESERVE to die. (Like some "horror movies" I can name)
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2005 : 2:44:22 PM
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| I wonder if the writers of 24 ever saw this movie. There were a lot of things going on in Season Three that are VERY similar to this movie. |
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Kooshmeister
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2005 : 10:05:50 AM
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Update! I seem to have made a mistake with regards to what I thought was a blooper regarding Phillips' assistant at the beginning: he is not putting a matchbook into his pocket twice. What actually happens is he is holding a very small notebook and a pen. He puts the notebook into his pocket, then the shot changes, and then when it cuts back to him and Phillips, he puts the pen into the same pocket in a very similar movement.
I feel foolish. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2005 : 7:43:00 PM
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OK, everybody point at Kooshmeister and Laugh!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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hk6909
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
651 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2005 : 07:03:14 AM
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Okay. Haw! Haw!
Nice review, Koosh. :)
No, as a matter of fact, there has never been one single time where I've been mellow. |
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Island of Terror
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