Some peculiar goings-on going on on this island.
Isn't it always the way? A scientist (typically male, not always mad) wants to do good for the world, but winds up mucking it up instead. The Fly is the platonic ideal of this story since it's about an inventor who makes a working teleporter but doesn't count on a literal bug getting into the system when he tries it out himself. Then there's Dr. Keloid from David Cronenberg's Rabid, who develops a new kind of tissue that could potentially make organ transplants a thing of the past, but instead creates something horrific that gives his test patient a thirst for blood. Far down the list is Island of Terror's Dr. Phillips, who's working on a cure for cancer (hooray!), but mistakenly unleashes a horde of armored, silicon-based life forms that suck the bones out of their victims' bodies and double their numbers every six hours (boo!). That's it, scientists. Your funding is cut.
Made in 1966, while director Terence Fisher was between assignments for Hammer (namely, Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Frankenstein Created Woman), Island of Terror stars Peter Cushing as Dr. Stanley, a pathologist (the most eminent in Great Britain according to one character) brought to a tiny island off the coast of Ireland to consult on the curious case of a farmer discovered in a cave without a bone in his body. Accompanying him: "young genius" Dr. David West (Edward Judd), a bone disease expert, and West's rich girlfriend, Toni (Carole Gray), who insists on going along because the island was apparently short one useless woman. Once livestock start turning up deboned, the locals turn to Campbell, the head of the island (Niall MacGinnis), who has to get the scoop from Drs. Stanley and West since the island's GP, Dr. Landers (Eddie Byrne), goes the way of the farmer when he tries to take an axe to one of the silly looking buggers.
Make no mistake, the silicates, as they're dubbed, look incredibly goofy. After a close call with them, Dr. Stanley quips "Nasty little creatures, aren't they?" and Toni says "I've never seen anything so horrible," but the fact remains that squat, slow-moving mounds with tentacles on the front aren't terribly terrifying. It's only when one latches onto somebody and starts sucking the life out of them that the film even begins to live up to its title.