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.

Watching this reminded me of staying up late at night in the early 50s after mom and dad went to bed. Cheaply made, mediocre acting, and a spooky soundtrack.

It was interesting to hear the Theme from "The Whistler" radio show in the first few moments after the opening credits. But there is no other mention of a conn3ction to the radio show in the film.

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.

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.

I would have voted 6, but had to subtract one for the grizzly, bouncy print, even the DVD print purchased from DeepdiscountDVD was wretched (not their fault.) But, the price was right, under $5.00 on sale. The actors were wonderful in their scenery chewing portrayals of the various greedy characters. Many of them were quite well known actors in the 40s. The only truly bad acting was by the two actors portraying the young lovers, whose characters added no value to the story anyway. The other reviews pretty well cover the story and need not be repeated here. The story was adapted from the play "Angel Island". What was fun about the movie presentation is that it doesn't stray far from the stage play form. The scenes don't change often and the action is concentrated in one spot. This helps maintain the continuity of the story, which in low budget presentations can quite often get lost. If you like stories like "Ten Little Indians", you'll like this.