ISLAND OF THE DEAD

Mr. King is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur who has decided to buy an entire island, Hart Island, to build the city of Hope City on it, and to realize his dream, he will use the labor of some young inmates. But Hart Island is no ordinary island, Hart Island is the island that for years has collected all the unclaimed cadavers of the city of New York. Meanwhile, the police detective Melissa O'Neil also arrives on the island, in charge of the missing persons department, who is investigating the disappearance of some small orphans presumably deceased and buried in secret precisely on Hart Island. For Mr. King, it will not be easy to realize his dream because he will soon have to prepare to face the true "masters" of the island. Produced for home video commerce only, "Island of the Dead" is a low-budget supernatural horror that seems, rather obviously, to be the result of a job done with superficiality and total lack of means and ideas. Effectively, it is not clear what the intention of the "brains" behind this film was: did they intend to generate a sort of supernatural thriller with a final moral? A mystery-horror? Or another title to add to the endless list of best movies? And already, because in the end the film seems to have a lot to say but when it comes to the end all the paths are left in suspense and therefore does not manage to communicate absolutely nothing. "Island of the Dead" begins like any thriller (of marked television style) with a detective with a mission to accomplish (the issue of the lost children); as the minutes pass, from the moment you set foot on the island, the film begins to take a mysterious inclination in which an entity (which will soon be revealed) is putting out of play all the unlucky ones and finally, when the die is cast and the mysterious "entity" will be given a form, here is where the film widely flows into the beast movie, but the serious problem is the choice of the "beasts" used as villains in the work, the flies, one of the insects (along with ants and wasps) that least lends itself to making a threat in a horror movie for two reasons: a) they do not possess any threatening characteristic and, therefore, there is a risk of turning into ridicule; b) if you do not have the right means it is rather arduous to offer a satisfactory rendering. Being "Island of the Dead" a product destined for home video only and with a very limited budget it is rather normal to expect a poor visual rendering of the flies and indeed, the critters, in all attack scenes are either not shown at all (rather ridiculous to see actors wriggling when the viewer will only hear an annoying buzz) or shown within huge swarms rendered in a not entirely sufficient manner. But in this work it is not only the "fly" factor that leaves you with a dry mouth (which may or may not be liked), but the total lack of rhythm. "Island of the Dead" is a film in which boredom reigns and in which for ninety minutes nothing interesting happens or that manages to capture the interested gaze of the viewer; all this due to a very weak and flat screenplay (which sees its biggest flaw in the hurried and banal ending that demonstrates that the ideas available were really non-existent) and a direction, entrusted to Tim Southam, extremely detached and television-like that does not provide any depth to the task carried out with coldness. What can surprise in a film like this is to see the presence of a rather rich cast. In the role of Mr. King, in fact, we have a always good Malcom McDowell (passed into history for having played the sadistic Alex de Large in "A Clockwork Orange" and recently Dr. Loomis in "Halloween – The Beginning"), to play the role of the detective Melissa O'Neil we have Talisa Soto ("Mortal Kombat", "Ballistic") and there is also room for Mos Def ("2 Hours", "The Italian Job") in the role of an inmate at Mr. King's service. In short, this "Island of the Dead" is a substantially useless film that uses a rather shaky and uninteresting base subject; surely there is something worse out there but the viewing of this film is also discouraged.