(1960)
Dir - John Gilling
Overall: MEH
In Peter Cushing's first staring role in a horror film outside of Hammer studios, The Flesh and the Fiends, (Mania in the US), he is very Dr. Frankensteiny in the best of ways. As a blindly narcissistic anatomist, delusionally convincing himself that his highly dubious methods are outweighed by their results, Cushing as the real life Dr. Rober Knox is both villainous and sympathetically pitiful to the audience. Even if the ending is a bit too illogically crowd-pleasing let alone historically very inaccurate. Director John Gilling had written the screenplay for the 1948 cinematic version of the Burke and Hare murders, (The Greed of William Hart), but he was forced to change all of the character's names around then. As opposed to Cushing, George Rose and Donald Pleasence are textbook, vile scumbags here and it is more unpleasant than anything to watch them do what the actual two Williams did in 1828. The movie also distracts itself with a number of lame sub-plots, never quite managing to settle on any story element in particular long enough to make them interesting. It is a bit too banal despite the talent at hand, with various other diabolical body snatcher and/or Jack the Ripper style movies of the era, (or older), faring far better.
(1964)
Dir - Anton M. Leader
Overall: GOOD
The Village of the Damned sequel, (based off of the 1960 John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos), Children of the Damned is a pretty solid second offering. It also inspired a rather excellent Iron Maiden song. Prominently boasting much, much larger moralistic themes, (as in typical science fiction, the "aliens" are the benevolent ones holding a mirror up to the trigger-happy society that is confused/threatened by them), Children retcons the original novel and film source material, removing the very effective if straight-ahead creepiness of Village in place of a high-minded allegory. While this is obviously quite a shift in focus, it is not a bad one and what the film lacks in a more eerie, horror-tinged premise and execution it makes up for in other ways. The ending comes a little too close to being an unintentionally comedic cop-out, but there are still some striking moments of the children of the title standing motionless with their glowing eyes as they defend themselves against endless military men, embassy leaders, and hired goons who would do them harm. Director Anton M. Leader makes some effective stylistic choices such as showing the children move in slow motion as they are out and about while gathering their forces in downtown London. It is a well done example of a sequel that wisely chooses not to simply rehash its predecessor, but instead takes a gamble at going a different yet still compelling route.
(1966)
Dir - Terence Fisher
Overall: MEH
By 1966, movies where lab coat-wearing scientists get together and theorize about what weird, scientific anamoly is terrorizing whatever area while unimportant locals get predictably picked off as we wait were already rather old hat. That right there is the biggest reason that Island of Terror fails to work. It is very "same shit, different movie" to a fault. Sadly, Terence Fisher being brought in while taking a quick break from Hammer does nothing to elevate the humdrum. He is forced to shoot pointless scenes such as the entire process of guys getting into radioactive suites, opening a storage area, and removing a single cylinder of whatever while the music desperately tries to make it exciting. Instead, we could have just watched them enter the room and come back out with the stuff in about three seconds. Peter Cushing is also here as one of the doctor guys looking for answers and he played so many such similar characters over his long career that you almost forget that he does not actually have a PhD in such fields. The bone-marrow sucking monsters are somewhat menacing since of course bullets, dynamite, and fire do nothing to harm them, but they also move at a snail's pace and are just another mindless hoard of silly looking blobby/snake-like things. Pretty unexciting stuff.
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