the 1945 val lewton isle of the dead be and regrettably and aptly title represent the film itself be a dead and awkward thing and largely devoid of the style that make such lewton film a cat people and i walk with a zombie and and the body snatcher so memorable . the story concern a 19th century greek military commander ( karloff ) who visit his wife grave and locate on an island describe a a cemetery . but plague break out and in order to prevent it spread the commander quarantine the island . even a various resident fall ill and die and others attribute the death to a greek style vampire while to further complicate the story a premature burial leave the prematurely bury considerably annoy and to say the least . the basic problem here be the script and credit to josef mishel and ardel wray represent the dialogue be incredibly awkward and the overall story be at best vague and at bad incomprehensible . karloff and have just give the performance of his career in the early the body snatcher and now give what may be his weak performance of the 1940s with this film and frankly he look incredibly ridiculous with curly hair . but karloff be not alone represent the entire cast be truly at sea and their performance clash at every possible stylistic level and and director mark robson be unable to chart any direction that might give these issue any interest . lewton be greatly admire for his skill in turn low budget into memorable horror film with unexpected poet flourish while he be and without doubt and one of the few genius producer of the 20th century . but isle of the dead do him no credit . although it will be a must see for lewton and karloff fan and they will be tremendously disappointed and all others be warn off . gary f. taylor and aka gft and amazon reviewer .