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• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000028U3Q
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,234 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Lewton touch., December 6, 1999

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Daisy Ghostly (Odense, Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isle of the Dead (VHS Tape)

Karloff did three great movies for producer Val Lewton in the mid-40's; and while "Isle" may not be the best of them, it's probably the creepiest. Especially the famous "resurrection" scene comes to mind. I dare you to watch the last 10 minutes of the film with all the lights out, and you won't forget it for a long time. -Those drops of water hitting that coffin, the sobbing and the subsequent "walk of terror" around the house will stay with you, I gaurantee. The story is not very logical, but it's scary and that's what counts. Lewton was indeed the true Master of atmosphere.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark, Moody, Atmospheric... and Ellen Drew too!, October 28, 2003

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bix lang "pastafagiole" (Davenport, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isle of the Dead (VHS Tape)

Another Val Lewton masterpiece of horror through suggestion, shadow, and surrealism. Karloff is at his best as a grizzardly Greek general whose mind is caught between the rationalism of modern secular thinking and the oppressive superstitions of his native culture. Do Vorvolika (vampires) really exist on the dark, dreary Island off the Greek coast? Even worse, is delicately beautiful Ellen Drew one such creature? See for yourself in this well-made tale of psychological terror. Karloff is splendid in his role as the well-intentioned general whose only wish is to protect the party stranded on a dreary island overcome by a terrible plague. But is it really the plague, or is it the spell of vampires? Great support from Alan Napier, Skelton Knaggs, and Jason Robards, Sr. Of course, Ellen Drew, one of Hollywood's truly beautiful and ladylike actresses of the late 1930s and early 1940s is effective as well as gorgeous in the role of the young Greek servant whom one rather superstitious and jealous old hag believes is a "vorvolika." Is she? And how will Karloff deal with the situation? Purchase this film. Like "The Body Snatcher" and "The Cat People," the directing is magnificent. Lewton's genius at utilizing shadows and suggestions creates more terror than a million slasher films with gallons of blood splashing across the screen. A great horror film with fine performances both in front of, and behind, the camera.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ghosts of the past, November 10, 2004

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J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Isle of the Dead [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Isle of the Dead" is a multilayered film that is at first hard to penetrate, but when the viewer actually understands what's going on the rewards are rich. A group of people are quarantined on a small Greek island during the Balkan war of 1912, and things start happening which we can never be sure are actually supernatural or not until the horrific ending.

Boris Karloff is in top form playing the creepy but well intentioned "watchdog" General Nikolas Pherides, a man set apart from others by his inhuman loyalty to the military and his singular loneliness. Also, as the film goes on and he grows more and more irrational, we see that he is slowly losing his mind.

One gets the sense from the beginning of the film that this tough and alienated old man probably would have been better off if he had never decided to accompany a strangely sprightly reporter, Oliver Davis (he seems almost amusingly out of place in this movie, and his cheesy romanticism makes you wonder if he wandered off the set of "Casablanca") to the small island where his wife is buried.

As it turns out, all the coffins have been pillaged by peasants for antiques, and the bodies destroyed by a superstitious old woman who turns out to be the real villian in the film, a black clad old coot named Mira. From the outset she preys on the General's already unsound mind, insisting that Thea (Ellen Drew), a healthy young woman, is a vampire feasting on the ill health of the rest of the islands' inhabitants. At first Karloff's character writes her off as a nut, but as his friends start falling dropping off like flies from the plague which has struck the island, he becomes more and more vulnerable to her nonsense, and begins watching Thea like a hawk.

Albrecht (actually actor Jason Robards' father in an unflattering role), who owns the island, is a native Greek and sits somewhat happily as the dementia escalates. He seems like the Santa Claus of the movie, praying to Hermes and insisting that one must surrender to the gods in order to achieve an honorable death. There is one unforgettable scene in which the military doctor catches the plague and simply says, while dying, "Live fighting and die knowing you know nothing". Thereby another knotch in the already deteriorating psyche of the General is undone.

This is a film about acceptance of fate and the consequences of dogged stubborness represented by the General. The last half hour is unforgettable; a woman is buried alive, bursts from her coffin (the mood of unrelenting doom and inevitable death is pure Poe) and begins a killing spree which ends in the death of both the General and the superstitious old Mira. Ultimately the General is a sympathetic character. We are not sure what to make of his intensity. In the first scene he sends a man to die for abandoning his troops without blinking, and yet throughout the rest of the movie his more human side emerges, which he has obviously been repressing for a long time. The atmosphere of this film will not leave you long after watching it.