Ernst Dorian A Greek general on a small island is enmeshed with vampires and witchcraft.
Eerie thriller has some good effects.
A study of the behaviour of a group of people stranded on a Greek island and threatened by plague, it is potentially a great Lewton subject. One might expect an equally bleak and even more abstract The Seventh Victim , but no such luck. After an hour of tiresome exposition, the film comes to life for a premature burial sequence, only to collapse again into a series of oddly unaffecting, conventional horror movie murders. Isle of the Dead is so ineffective, so lacking in Lewton's customary complexity and finish that one is forced to conclude that something went wrong with the film, something beyond the producer's control. A reading of the screenplay pinpoints the problem.