La isla de los muertos vivientes

Donald Trump-like developer Rupert King (Malcolm McDowell), missing persons detective Melissa O'Keefe (Talisa Soto), the New York City Mayor, and a number of inmates and an assortment of other characters converge as they are all headed towards Hart Island. Hart Island, just off of the Bronx in Long Island Sound, is home of the infamous "Potter's Field"--a massive graveyard of the poor and unknown. King has plans to turn the island into government assistance housing. When the graves are disturbed however, supernatural forces come into play to put an end to any tampering.

Island Of The Dead begins with a lot of promise. The initial voice-over by O'Keefe is interesting, as it explains that she was an abandoned infant and is now searching for a missing girl from a famous year-old case. The introduction of two prisoners, handcuffed to a "meat-locker" drawer in a morgue as they wait to go on burial duty at Hart Island is intriguing. And King is at least passable when we first meet him (McDowell vacillates between passable and good throughout the film).

Our trip over to Hart Island, following our cast of characters as they ride the ferry across Long Island Sound, is good, too, and Mos Def, whom we meet on the boat, is funny—deservedly, Mos Def has already been in a large number of films since Island Of The Dead. Even Hart Island is captivating at first. I'm not sure if it was actually filmed on Hart Island, which is still under the supervision of the New York State Department of Corrections and has very limited access, but whatever the location, it is beautifully stark--an appropriate setting for a horror film. With one exception, there is a lot of good cinematography throughout the early part of the film, including the landscape of (or standing for) Hart Island and especially shots of some marvelous dilapidated buildings, where some scenes are set and more should have been. The exception to good cinematography in the early part of the film is a digital video pan across some old buildings, shot from a vehicle or on a dolly, which becomes pixelated halfway through. Apparently, this was the only footage extant of this, and they really wanted to use it, because despite the flaw, it is inserted a couple times.

The story up to this point, although perhaps a bit slow and a bit odd at times, such as the dialogue scene between King and the Mayor where we cannot hear what they're saying but instead hear a rap song, is more than satisfactory. Most of the facts and history of Hart Island given in the script are actually true, even though some of it might seem implausible to someone unfamiliar with this New York City oddity (another film which is partially about Hart Island, and worth watching if the island intrigues you, is Don't Say A Word (2001)).

However, somewhere around the middle, unfortunately just about the time that the horror material really begins to kick in, writer/director Tim Southam loses his pacing. Not too long after that, he also loses the plot. Some of the horror material is okay--the effects are decent for a low-budget, direct-to-video release, but the pacing kills most of the tension that would have been available. Worse, once we become more familiar with the menace, the "rules of the game" get progressively more ambiguous. We don't know why the menace attacks the way it does or who it does, and late in the proceedings, a few characters take inexplicable actions. By the end, it seems like Southam is drawing thriller plot clichés out of a hat and rushing through them because he's about to run out of film. It's even more of a shame because the beginning was so promising.

My final verdict, while positive, is just slightly so--a 6 out of 10.

This film doesn't make too much sense. A sergeant (Talisa Soto) assigned to missing persons, is looking for a little girl on an island where the indigent are buried. At the same time some real estate magnate (Malcolm McDowell) wants the island for homes for the homeless. Is it something he is doing out of the kindness of his heart, or does he have some plan connected to the pharmaceutical industry.

No matter, they are all stuck on the island and the flies are p*ssed. Yes, flies. No alligators, or bears, or Godzilla, just flies. How much terror can you get from a swarm of flies? There are worms too, but that is just disgusting.

Talisa Soto (Licence to Kill) is better than this. McDowell is washed up.

99% of all the reviews for this movie are correct.............the packaging makes you believe that it's a zombie movie.........but the only thing dead in this movie is the movie itself. The acting wasn't bad, there just wasn't any freaking zombies. Stay away if possible, unless you like a "bugs-that-sting-you-and-make-you-decompose" type of movie. The packing also noted that the movie was rated "R" for graphic violence..........where was the violence?????????? A complete waste of time. Talisa Soto makes for some cool eye candy when she's not watching urban kids jump rope and singing a stupid song. Again, don't bother.......................

Really. I love decaying villages and buildings, wastelands and deserted landscapes. That's what was hoping for, even when I knew the movie itself would be bad. "A ghost town" there is, on that island. Maybe some eerie film footage? Laughable, the whole movie, the story, the mood, everything.

In the "Ghost village" they enter one building. About two minutes later they are back in that cheap house, where they keep returning to half of the movie. The flies... well okay I knew how this aspect would turn out... just horrible. There's rarely any plot, and still there are holes in it that were perplexing at best. Why would the flies "kill" those other people when you get the conclusion? Why is Malcolm's character blowing up something all of a sudden?

Avoid this peace.

An interesting film directed by Tim Southam in which a small island known to be the burying place for indigents from New York City becomes the setting of some bizarre deaths as well as some political machinations of a Donald Trump-like billionaire who has bought the island and plans on creating housing for the homeless. The characters involved with first landing on the island and then discovering this weird killing force are a female policewoman who is looking for a nameless dead child, forgotten to everyone except her, a prisoner who is innocent of a crime but is doing his time by burying people on the island in mass graves, and a man with gobs of money who has bought the island for seemingly altruistic reasons but in reality has purely selfish goals. The other people on the island die mysteriously with what turns out to be a thinking mass of flies that kills quickly and strips bodies of their flesh and speeds up the decay process twenty-fold. The film suffers from some budgetary concerns as the flies are hardly impressive to see or view. The script also get somewhat trite near the end with little creative tinkering with a situation seen before in other films.That all withstanding, this was quite an unexpected treasure to see. I sat down thinking I was about to watch some special effect laden film about the rotting dead prancing about, but instead I found the film to be very interesting, claustrophobic, decently acted, and even philosophical. Sure there are some things over-done like the girls playing in the streets and the oddly misplaced rap music, but those are small complaints. I am not saying the film is great in any way, but it is a thinking horror film that depends on mood and setting and suggestion rather than what can easily be viewed. Malcom McDowell does an outstanding job in his businessman role. He just oozes with nastiness when he wants to. Talisa Soto also does a rather good job as a cop. Don't brush the film off too quickly nor pay to much mind to the negative reviews. Certainly if you were expecting a film with mindless rotting corpses coming after you with the promise of lots of blood and guts and got a movie with some thought-provoking material you would be disappointed too?