Lawbolisted Powerful

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

MartinHafer This movie was released by PRC--clearly a so-called 'poverty row studio'. This nickname was given to the low-end studios--that were really studios in name only and were more like the minor leagues of the film industry. Instead of owning their own production space, most of these production companies rented space on the lots of major studios and shot their pictures at night! That's why most films by PRC and other smaller outfits are shot entirely on sound stages where you have no idea if it's day or night. As for PRC specifically, most of their films had abysmally small budgets and poor writing--though a few decent actors like George Zucco or Lionel Atwill worked for them as well as the big studios. Fortunately, both of these actors who specialized in suspense and horror films were here together in "Fog Island"--a film about revenge.Zucco had been ruined financially many years before and even went to prison for this. However, he blames his 'friends' for this predicament, as many of them testified against him or abandoned their friendship with him when his legal troubles began. Inexplicably, years later they actually agree to see him again...here on isolated Fog Island. Frankly, I just can't see why they would come--especially since it seems pretty obvious their lives might be endangered. However, from where the danger came took my by surprise, as it turns out Zucco is NOT the only madman--but he WILL have his revenge. What exactly happens next actually had a few surprises and made the most of the tiny PRC budget. While not a great film, it was very enjoyable and worth seeing--especially if you are a fan of this sort of thing...which I sure am.

classicsoncall Wait a minute - that's how it ends? Where did all that water go? Then Kingsley (John Whitney) gives Gail (Sharon Douglas) the bum's rush out of the ex-pirate mansion and she's OK with leaving her step-father behind for the rest of her life without saying good bye? Yeah, I know, her step-father was dead, but she didn't know that. I have to say, the end of this picture felt like the film makers ran out their budget and they had to pull the plug on the last dime. Very disappointing.What led up to the finale showed some promise, even if it was a bit far fetched. You had to accept the idea that the four former business associates of Leo Granger (George Zucco) would accept an invitation to his Fog Island home, knowing that he was out for revenge on the one or more who set him up for prison and killed his wife. Greed was supposed to be the motive but I'm not buying it. Would you accept that invitation? The film had some of the same plot elements as Vincent Price's 1959 flick "House on Haunted Hill". There's the invitation for starters, and then you have the party favors Granger offers with his guests' first drink. That was curious though, as it seemed to me each person selected their own wrapped gift, and it turned out to be exactly the one that fit their particular circumstance. The basement even had a trap door, similar to Price's vat full of poison in the floor, and there was a skeleton down there! Was that supposed to be Karma? Yikes!A lot of mystery films of the era seemed to rely heavily on characters spying on each other from just around the corner or from another room. In this one, everyone is doing it, and it got to the point where it was amusing because each character seemed to know the precise time he should be looking out for the next guy. Granger himself was all over the place, it's too bad he didn't make it to the end of the picture.I wanted to like this one a lot more, just because you had George Zucco and Lionel Atwill in the same picture together, and as adversaries no less. That face to face moment between them was very sinister, but the payoff almost became a 'huh?' moment until you figured out Atwill just stabbed him. Zucco kept right on talking until he just stopped in mid sentence, and that was it! I don't know, maybe they should have put a little more thought into this. It had some great potential with the great atmospherics and spooky subterranean cavern under the house. In the end, the thing that most impressed me was the title.

GManfred A creepy old house on an island shrouded in fog, a handful of suspects (victims?) and George Zucco and Lionel Atwill together on the same screen - what else could we B fans ask for? Well, for starters, we could ask for a better script, a few less holes in the plot and a better love interest twosome than Sharon Douglas and John Whitney, who nearly sinks the picture all by himself with a very poor acting job.I have to think this story worked better on the stage as the director here couldn't bring it off on screen. But if you go with it and make generous allowances for the proceedings it will work for you.Plus - did you ever think you could ever see Zucco and Atwill in the same picture? They are here - for the first and maybe only time! Now that's worth the price of admission! All you have to do is overlook the small details.

Hitchcoc The movie is OK. It's fun to see those murky horror film stars George Zucco and Lionel Atwill, lurking around a mansion built by pirates. Zucco has been in prison for five years and invites the people who caused his incarceration to join him for a party. You might think they would be hesitant to do so, but they all show up. They believe that there is some filthy lucre to get their hands on and, being bad to the bone, they feel they can find it. Zucco, however, has some surprises for them. It's a variation on The Haunting of Hell House. There is a romantic subplot that goes on and a little surprise at the end. Much of the acting is pretty bad, but I am a sucker for these old dark house things. There's fun to be had with a little suspension of disbelief and plain old people watching.