Island of Terror
Encyclopedia
Island of Terror is a 1966 British horror film
released by Planet Film Productions. The film was released in the US by Universal Studios
on a double bill with The Projected Man
(1967). The idea for the film came when Richard Gordon read the screenplay The Night the Silicates Came from Gerry Fernback. He partnered with Tom Blakey of Planet Films to produce this movie. It was shot in rural England using naturalistic colors. This film is one of the last significant examples of a common 1950s plot style in which a horrific threat introduced by a scientist is resolved by others using "responsible" scientific measures.
Ian Bellows goes missing and his wife contacts the local constabulary
. Constable
John Harris goes looking for him and finds him dead in a cave without a single bone in his body. Horrified, Harris swiftly fetches the town physician Dr. Reginald Landers, but Dr. Landers is unable to determine what happened to the dead man's skeleton. Landers journeys to the mainland to seek the help of a noted pathologist, Dr. Brian Stanley in London
.
Like Landers, Stanley is unable to even hypothesize what could have happened to Ian Bellows, so both men seek out Dr. David West, an expert on bones and bone diseases. Although Stanley and Landers interrupt West's dinner date with the wealthy jetsetter Toni Merrill, West is intrigued by the problem and so agrees to accompany the two doctors back to Petrie's Island to examine the corpse. In order for them to reach the island that much faster, Toni offers the use of her father's private helicopter
in exchange for the three men allowing her to come along on the adventure.
Once back at Petrie's Island, Toni's father's helicopter is forced to return to the mainland so he can use it, leaving the foursome effectively stranded on Petrie until the helicopter can return. West and Stanley learn that a group of oncology
researchers led by Dr. Lawrence Phillips, seeking a cure for cancer
, have a secluded castle laboratory on the island. Paying a visit to Phillips' lab however reveals that he and his colleagues are just as dead (and boneless) as Ian Bellows. Reasoning that whatever it is must have begun in that lab, West, Stanley and Landers gather up Phillips' notes and take them to study them. From them they learn than in his quest to cure cancer, Phillips may have accidentally created a new lifeform from the silicon
atom
.
Thinking the doctors are at the castle, Constable Harris bikes up there looking for them to tell them about the discovery of a dead, boneless horse, only to wander into the laboratory's "test animals" room and be attacked and killed by an offscreen tentacled creature, the result of Dr. Phillips' experiments. The creatures are eventually dubbed "silicates" by West and Stanley, and kill their victims by injecting a bone-dissolving enzyme
into their bodies. The silicates are also incredibly difficult to kill, as Landers learns when he tries and fails to kill one at the castle with an axe when they first encounter them.
After learning all they can from the late Dr. Phillips' notes, West and Stanley recruit the islanders, led by "boss" Roger Campbell and store owner Peter Argyle (who seems to serve as Campbell's second-in-command in an unofficial capacity), to attack the silicates with anything they've got: bullets, petrol bombs
, and dynamite
all fail to even harm the silicates. But when one is found dead, apparently having ingested a rare isotope
called Strontium-90
from Phillips' lab, West and Stanley realize they must find more of the isotope at the castle and figure out how to contaminate the remaining silicates with it before it is too late. They obtain enough isotope to contaminate a herd of cattle - at the cost of Stanley's right hand, when he's grabbed by a silicate - and the silicates feed on these and begin to die.
The story ends with evacuation and medical teams inbound from the mainland and West commenting on how fortunate they were that this outbreak was confined to an island. Had it happened on the mainland, he notes, they might never have stopped them in time. This sets up an epilogue and a visit to the satellite program where the techs are duplicating Phillips' work - with the inevitable result. A technician walks down a corridor, hears a strange noise and investigates before screaming.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
released by Planet Film Productions. The film was released in the US by Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
on a double bill with The Projected Man
The Projected Man
The Projected Man is a British science fiction film starring Mary Peach, Bryant Haliday, Norman Wooland, and Ronald Allen. It was released in the United States by Universal Studios, as a double bill with Island of Terror. The plot revolves around a scientist, Dr...
(1967). The idea for the film came when Richard Gordon read the screenplay The Night the Silicates Came from Gerry Fernback. He partnered with Tom Blakey of Planet Films to produce this movie. It was shot in rural England using naturalistic colors. This film is one of the last significant examples of a common 1950s plot style in which a horrific threat introduced by a scientist is resolved by others using "responsible" scientific measures.
Plot
On the remote Petrie's Island, farmerFarmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
Ian Bellows goes missing and his wife contacts the local constabulary
Constabulary
Constabulary may have several definitions.*A civil, non-paramilitary force consisting of police officers called constables. This is the usual definition in Britain, in which all county police forces once bore the title...
. Constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
John Harris goes looking for him and finds him dead in a cave without a single bone in his body. Horrified, Harris swiftly fetches the town physician Dr. Reginald Landers, but Dr. Landers is unable to determine what happened to the dead man's skeleton. Landers journeys to the mainland to seek the help of a noted pathologist, Dr. Brian Stanley in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Like Landers, Stanley is unable to even hypothesize what could have happened to Ian Bellows, so both men seek out Dr. David West, an expert on bones and bone diseases. Although Stanley and Landers interrupt West's dinner date with the wealthy jetsetter Toni Merrill, West is intrigued by the problem and so agrees to accompany the two doctors back to Petrie's Island to examine the corpse. In order for them to reach the island that much faster, Toni offers the use of her father's private helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
in exchange for the three men allowing her to come along on the adventure.
Once back at Petrie's Island, Toni's father's helicopter is forced to return to the mainland so he can use it, leaving the foursome effectively stranded on Petrie until the helicopter can return. West and Stanley learn that a group of oncology
Oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer...
researchers led by Dr. Lawrence Phillips, seeking a cure for cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, have a secluded castle laboratory on the island. Paying a visit to Phillips' lab however reveals that he and his colleagues are just as dead (and boneless) as Ian Bellows. Reasoning that whatever it is must have begun in that lab, West, Stanley and Landers gather up Phillips' notes and take them to study them. From them they learn than in his quest to cure cancer, Phillips may have accidentally created a new lifeform from the silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
atom
Atom
The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
.
Thinking the doctors are at the castle, Constable Harris bikes up there looking for them to tell them about the discovery of a dead, boneless horse, only to wander into the laboratory's "test animals" room and be attacked and killed by an offscreen tentacled creature, the result of Dr. Phillips' experiments. The creatures are eventually dubbed "silicates" by West and Stanley, and kill their victims by injecting a bone-dissolving enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
into their bodies. The silicates are also incredibly difficult to kill, as Landers learns when he tries and fails to kill one at the castle with an axe when they first encounter them.
After learning all they can from the late Dr. Phillips' notes, West and Stanley recruit the islanders, led by "boss" Roger Campbell and store owner Peter Argyle (who seems to serve as Campbell's second-in-command in an unofficial capacity), to attack the silicates with anything they've got: bullets, petrol bombs
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
, and dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
all fail to even harm the silicates. But when one is found dead, apparently having ingested a rare isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...
called Strontium-90
Strontium-90
Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium, with a half-life of 28.8 years.-Radioactivity:Natural strontium is nonradioactive and nontoxic, but 90Sr is a radioactivity hazard...
from Phillips' lab, West and Stanley realize they must find more of the isotope at the castle and figure out how to contaminate the remaining silicates with it before it is too late. They obtain enough isotope to contaminate a herd of cattle - at the cost of Stanley's right hand, when he's grabbed by a silicate - and the silicates feed on these and begin to die.
The story ends with evacuation and medical teams inbound from the mainland and West commenting on how fortunate they were that this outbreak was confined to an island. Had it happened on the mainland, he notes, they might never have stopped them in time. This sets up an epilogue and a visit to the satellite program where the techs are duplicating Phillips' work - with the inevitable result. A technician walks down a corridor, hears a strange noise and investigates before screaming.
Cast
- Peter CushingPeter CushingPeter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
as Dr. Brian Stanley - Edward JuddEdward JuddEdward Judd was a British actor.Born in Shanghai, China, he and his English father and Russian mother fled when the Japanese attacked China five years later....
as Dr. David West - Carole Gray as Toni Merrill
- Eddie ByrneEddie ByrneEddie Byrne was an Irish actor. Outside Ireland he is probably best known for his minor role as General Vanden Willard in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but fans of cult sci-fi might also remember him as the skeptical Inspector Mulrooney in The Mummy and as the kindly Dr. Reginald Landers in...
as Dr. Reginald Landers - Sam KyddSam KyddSam Kydd was an Ulster-born English actor. An army officer's son, he was born in Belfast, but moved to London, England when he was a child. He was educated at Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England....
as Constable John Harris - Niall MacGinnisNiall MacGinnisNiall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who made 80 screen appearances.-Early life:MacGinnis was born in Dublin in 1913. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in England, and studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon...
as Roger Campbell - James Caffrey as Peter Argyle
- Liam GaffneyLiam GaffneyLiam Gaffney was an Irish film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* The Londonderry Air * The Villiers Diamond * Irish and Proud of It * The Four Just Men...
as Ian Bellows - Roger Heathcote as Dunley
- Keith BellKeith BellKeith Radcliffe Bell was a rugby union player who represented Australia.Bell, a prop, was born in Goondiwindi, Queensland and claimed 1 international rugby cap for Australia.-References:...
as Halsey - Margaret LaceyMargaret LaceyMargaret Lacey was a Welsh actress.She appeared in over 30 films between 1957 and 1985 mostly playing a sweet old lady or motherly figure in minor roles...
as Old Woman - Shay Gorman as Morton
- Peter Forbes-Robertson as Dr. Lawrence Phillips
- Richard Bidlake as Carson
- Joyce Hemson as Mrs. Bellows