Island of Terror (1966 film)

Silicate monster from Island of Terror (1966 film)...

Monster from Island of the Burning Damned (1967 film)...

Island of Terror, AKA Night of the Silicates, The Creepers, The Night the Creatures Came, The Night the Silicates Came (1966); the same producer and director loosely remade this film (with a similar cast but different monsters) as Night of the Big Heat AKA Island of the Burning Damned and Island of the Burning Doomed (1967)

Summary

"How could they stop the devouring death... that lived by liquefying living human bones?!" "See: mysterious invaders from outer space create their scorching heat rays that consume the people and an island!" Grisly deaths bring a scientist to a remote island where researchers have discovered a deadly life form.

Details

• Release Date: 1966, 1967
• Country/Language: UK, English
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Sci-fi
• Setting: remote islands of the UK in the 1960s (BERG)
• Runtime: 1 hr 29 min; 1 hr 34 min
• Starring: Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray; Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Patrick Allen
• Director: Terence Fisher
• Writer: Edward Andrew Mann and Al Ramsen (original story); Ronald Liles (screenplay), John Lymington (novel)
• Producer/Production Co: Planet Film Productions
• IMDB: (link), (link)
• TVTropes: (link), (link)
• View Trailer: (link), (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (not rated) (perhaps equivalent to a PG for mild Violence and body horror)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; could be a very loose adaptation)

Besides the obligatory tentacle-monsters, there is some wonderful "body horror" in the form of bodies with dissolved skeletons, and a nice, paranoid atmosphere in a remote rural area.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Shaun Anderson at The Celluloid Highway (link) - " One of the more interesting and a personal favourite of mine is Night of the Big Heat. Its daft and its silly, but in the best tradition of British genre filmmaking it possesses a strange charm..."
• Scott Ashlin at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting (Night of the Big Heat) (2.5/5 Stars) (link) - " Coming from me, this is going to sound awfully strange, but Island of the Burning Doomed’s greatest strength is the fact that it mainly keeps the aliens offscreen. ... As it stands, the movie is not the tiniest bit frightening..."
• Graeme Clark at The Spinning Image (6/10 Stars) (link) - "One of the reasons Island of Terror is surprisingly suspenseful is that the odds are stacked against our heroes... The climax, ... brings the film to an appropriately exciting end, and the whole production is as brisk and efficient as its protagonists."
• Chris Wood at British Horror Films (link) - "Island Of Terror has a fantastic ending ... which is genuinely exciting. Despite their looks, the silicates are extremely menacing..."
• Chris Wood at British Horror Films (Night of the Big Heat) (link) - "Most of the film is more a kind of domestic drama than sci-fi invasion extravaganza..."
• Richard Scheib at the Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (2/5 Stars) (link) - "Unfortunately the menace is too dull to be effective – and Terence Fisher fails to tap into any of the swimming subtexts that manage to make all good science-fiction monsters more than they are."
• Richard Scheib at the Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (Night of the Big Heat) (2/5 Stars) (link) - "All of these films are nondescript. ... Terence Fisher, ... failed to translate the vividity and floridness of his Gothic period work into a contemporary locale. He simply fails to conjure the necessary paranoid atmosphere that alien invasion films require..."
• Andrew Smith at Popcorn Pictures (link) - "Night of the Big Heat doesn’t rank with the best work of Fisher, Lee or Cushing but it’s still a great dose of British sci-fi/horror from the 60s."
• Andy Webb at The Movie Scene (3/5 Stars) (link) - "...Island of Terror ends up a familiar movie which uses the small community under threat from a dangerous organism storyline. About the only thing different about the movie and a surprise is that despite having the feel of a Hammer Studios movie it isn't.

Synopsis

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

ISLAND OF TERROR: An isolated remote island community is threatened by an attack by tentacled silicates which liquefy and digest bone and tissue. ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED: Britons sweat out a winter inferno caused by malignant alien protoplasm.

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• Variously known as Island of Terror, AKA Night of the Silicates, The Creepers, The Night the Creatures Came, The Night the Silicates Came (1966); the same producer and director loosely remade this film with a similar cast but different monsters as Night of the Big Heat AKA Island of the Burning Damned (1967) - the two films shared so many details (including similar promotional posters) that they have sometimes been mistaken as being the same film.

Associated Mythos Elements

• TO DO