Last night I watched Isle of the Dead<\/em>: produced by Val Lewton, directed by Mark Robson, and starring Boris Karloff. YES PLEASE. Karloff is just terrific in whatever role directors find for him. He was phenomenal as a slimy divinity student in Five-Star Final<\/em> and he\u2019s fearsome here as a merciless Greek general.<\/p>\n The movie is set on a remote Greek island\u2013cue Lewtonish classical allusions\u2013whose inhabitants are menaced by either the septicemic plague, or the vampire-like Vorvolaka<\/em>. The religion\/myth vs. science themes don\u2019t add much, and the actors who aren\u2019t Karloff are fine but not outstanding. There are a few powerful images, like the battlefield draped with corpses at the beginning and the lovely graveclothes blowing in the wind at the end, but overall the imagery isn\u2019t the movie\u2019s strong point.<\/p>\n You know what is terrifying in this movie? The noises. Karloff\u2019s voice is dark and insinuating, smoothly-oiled and ferociously grim. An old woman stays up at night hissing cruel imprecations through the walls. A woman shrieks<\/em> when she realizes she\u2019s been buried alive. (The visual here is terrifying, just the completely motionless coffin as we hear her beating on it and howling.) The night noises of the island. Even the movie\u2019s very first act of violence takes place offscreen, marked by the sound of a gunshot.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first Lewton you should check out if you\u2019ve never seen his work before. I\u2019d suggest I Walked with a Zombie<\/em>, Cat People<\/em> and Curse of the Cat People<\/em>, The Seventh Victim<\/em>, and The Leopard Man<\/em>, probably in that order. But if you already know you love his death-enraptured vision, you already know you\u2019ll love Isle of the Dead<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n