Fog Island

First time of watching: entertaining low budget spooky house mystery with Zucco and Atwill at their eye-popping peaks. Terrible print - the negative must look transparent, so I would definitely recommend switching the lights off (or a cinema) for optimum viewing.

It's a PRC stagey mix of And Then There Were None (in this case, Two) and The Cat And The Canary, with a few extra twists, but with only nine characters. The butler was a short-lived oddball however, quickly dispatched with gusto from the plot to the cynical amusement of Zucco. To my cynical amusement it's at that moment that Zucco is reminded that he "blew his top" when he was in prison - not hard to imagine!

The male romantic lead was even more wooden, impetuous and prescient than the rest of the cast (Jerome Cowan was wasted yet again), but overall I enjoyed the film, nice atmosphere when the print allowed and an almost believable nasty-revenge storyline.

Wow, Atwill and Zucco together at last. I was expecting crackling transformers, electrical arcs, and monsters galore. No such luck. They do have one minor face-off, but I don't think the producers knew what sinister potential they had in these two veteran madmen.

It's a typical PRC cheap budget— a big drawing room, some secret passages, and an underground room that becomes a swimming pool at inconvenient times. And that's about it. The plot's supposed to be about an island host (Zucco) using a ruse to get people who wronged him onto his island as guests so he can get revenge. Maybe the premise is not very original, but it does have potential. Trouble is there's very little development producing either suspense or mystery. Mostly, it's scattered dialog and playing hide and seek in semi-darkness. In short, the narrative's a series of individual occurrences that fail to build beyond themselves. Thus, we're left with a few interesting set-ups but little more. Too bad.

Oh yes, mustn't forget not just one spider woman, but two—Borg and DeWit. Both are tall, forceful, and attractive. Like Zucco & Atwill, they do have one minor face-off, but I guess I was hoping for an all-out catfight, or more aptly a lioness fight. Now that would have been memorable. Anyway, the film does have its moments, but fails to cohere into anything more.

This crime/mystery drama is pretty murky in a number of respects, but it holds your interest most of the time with a tense and rather complicated story. George Zucco and Lionel Atwill are right at home in this kind of material, and the rest of the cast is solid if unspectacular.

The setup has Zucco as an ex-convict who has a mysterious home on "Fog Island", to which he lures an assortment of persons whom he holds responsible for framing him and for killing his wife. Zucco is convincing as a half-mad plotter, and although parts of his plan remain obscure or confusing, it's interesting in that his approach to revenge is not the usual one of direct confrontation.

Atwill and Veda Ann Borg are the liveliest of the supporting characters. John Whitney and Sharon Douglas are at least likable, but they are too plain to arouse much interest in their characters, who are significant to the story.

The fog and darkness that dominate the settings help to hide the low-budget production, and they also help in setting the atmosphere of confusion and distrust. There are a fair number of interesting moments, and although it doesn't all fit together as well as it could have, it's a fairly interesting offbeat feature of its kind.

Leo Granger, falsely framed for embezzlement and living on Fog Island with his stepdaughter, invites the 4 persons who framed him and one of which is responsible for the murder of Granger's wife. The only reason for the 4 to go to the former pirate hideaway, is that they, along w/ Granger's former cellmate, believe that somewhere in the house is a stash of money, Granger accumulated. One of the four, Kingsley, is the son of the recently deceased person who framed Granger, and is only there for Gail, the step-daughter. At the island, Granger gives each a clue to ultimately get "what's coming to them", and he waits to see how the group's greed will get the best of them. The film has the right atmosphere and a good cast, but that's all to recommend it. Obviously with a PRC budget, you might have had a style similar to Clair's And Then There Were None. Morse's direction is uneven, very often breaking the tension. Still a good production from the studio. Rating, 5.

Fog Island is a rather creepy little chiller from B-movie specialists PRC.

A man who lives in a creepy mansion with his step-daughter on a small island shrouded in fog invites some of his friends to stay. This mansion has hidden extras including secret passages and hidden doorways. The man also gives each of his "friends" strange little gifts including a skull, a key and a times table book. This man has a reason for all this though and strange things start happening...

This movie is quite creepy and atmospheric even though a little slow moving at times.

The cast includes horror B-movie regulars George Zucco (The Flying Serpent, Scared To Death) and Lionel Atwill (The Vampire Bat, House of Dracula).

Fog Island is worth a look at. Not too bad.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.