Island of Terror ** (1966, Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray) – Classic Movie Review 11,102

‘They lived by eating human bones… and threatened to consume the world!’

Director Terence Fisher’s 1966 British film Island of Terror [The Creepers] is a fairly shuddersome sci-fi horror movie starring Peter Cushing and Edward Judd as pathologist Dr Brian Stanley and bone disease expert Dr David West, doctors on a cancer research expedition to a remote Irish island of terror, where they find shell-like creatures that eat victims’ bones.

When a corpse is discovered devoid of bone on the island, Police Constable John Harris (Sam Kydd) calls in a baffled Dr Landers (Eddie Bryne), who goes to the mainland to see Dr Stanley and the duo go to consult Dr West. Once on Petrie’s Island, West and Stanley learn that a group of oncology researchers led by Dr Lawrence Phillips (Peter Forbes-Robertson) are seeking a cure for cancer and have a secluded castle laboratory on the island.

It is made and released by Planet Film Productions in the UK on 20 June 1966, and was released in the US by Universal Studios on 1 February 1967 in a double bill with The Projected Man (1967).

With a wobbly script by Edward Andrew Mann and Allan Ramsen, and a lack of confidence in the writers, the result is not outstanding, but it does exert a weird grip, thanks mainly to Cushing’s grave authority and regular Hammer Films horror director Fisher’s expert and practised touches. Carole Gray also stars as Dr West’s girlfriend Toni Merrill.

Shot in August and September 1965 on a low budget of £70,000 at Pinewood Studios and in nearby Buckinghamshire rural England by cinematographer Reginald H Wyer using naturalistic colours, it is one of the last examples of a regular Fifties horror film plot in which a threat introduced by a scientist is resolved by others using scientific means.

The film’s idea came when the producer Richard Gordon read Gerald A Fernback’s screenplay The Night the Silicates Came. Richard Gordon and Gerald A Fernback then partnered with Tom Blakeley of Planet Films to produce the film.

Also in the cast are Carole Gray, Eddie Byrne, Sam Kydd, Niall MacGinnis, James Caffrey, Liam Gaffney, Roger Heathcott, Peter Forbes-Robertson, Richard Bidlake, Joyce Hemson, Edward Ogden, Keith Bell, Margaret Lacey and Shay Gorman.

The US double feature poster of Island of Terror and The Projected Man.

Island of Terror [The Creepers] is directed by Terence Fisher, runs 89 minutes, is made by Protelco and Planet Film Productions, is released by Planet Film Productions (UK) and Universal (US), is written by Edward Andrew Mann (original story and screenplay) and Allan Ramsen (original story and screenplay), is shot in Eastmancolor by Reginald H Wyer [Reg Wyer], produced by Richard Gordon (executive producer), Gerald A Fernback (executive producer) and Tom Blakeley and scored by Malcolm Lockyer, with art direction and special effects by John St John Earl.

The BBFC cut the UK cinema version by a few seconds to remove a shot of blood spurts after a hand is chopped off with an axe (now restored).

The 50 films directed by Terence Fisher.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,102

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