Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

General

Symbolism and Biology of the Silicates from THE ISLAND OF TERROR

The Island of Terror is a underrated classic of Hammer’s B-Movie output.

Overshadowed by the horror remakes and Harryhausen films they funded, but it is definitely worth a look.  It has extremely unique monsters and a climax which belies the goofiness of the monsters’ appearance. 

And it also has Peter Cushing, making it at the very least watchable. 

I talk them up a lot, but they are a cheap effect.  However, their details, their makeup have them in a league above.  On paper, they are amazing and the movie is one of the few I would not mind seeing remade with better effects.  I’ve even confirmed this, as a game master for a roleplaying game, I’ve written up these beasts and thrown them at my players a few times.  They now live in absolute fear of them ever showing up again.  The core is solid, which is ripe for a remake.

Good luck to any who try to get someone on Cushing’s level, but at least it’ll look better.


Biology
I’ve gone over some weird monsters before, but this one probably tops them all in terms of weirdness.  I mean, just look at them!

They’re like turkey-sized green starfish with a feeding tube arm.

They are described as silicone based life forms, created in a lab by accident in an attempt to find something to destroy cancer cells. The creatures instead feed on calcium, using their feeding tube to nab victims, they latch on with a strong grip (suction, secretion or both used to hold on) and secrete a chemical which enters through the human’s pores.  It passes through clothing just as easily, and this chemical dissolves the calcium within and is then drained back into the Silicate.  It’s one of the most bizarre feeding methods I’ve ever come across.   It is akin to the feeding habits of some arthropods like predatory true bugs and some spiders, but they all liquefy the organs and flesh to slurp up all at once.

This creature, by comparison, is liquefying the shell to slurp up.  How it avoids other liquids in the body is a mystery outside of a very good filtration system.

Though it does give one of the most horrible deaths in all of fiction: the process of bone extraction is extremely painful for one, and the actual victim is done in by asphyxiation.  With no bones to push off of, the muscles just collapse on each other. 

Nasty.

The feeding tube is like something found in protozoa and other mico-organisms, while the starfish body really does move, act and look like a starfish.  Well, one that operates on land.  It can scale buildings pretty well too.  Some Starfish use numerous little legs to move, with suckers on the end or just plain spikes depending on the species.  This appears to be a sucker variant given what it can climb over.

Their method of reproduction is really weird to: akin to single celled organisms, they divide.  Unlike many of them, they do not recombine DNA with another to do so, they just grow and split.  Some forms do this, but only the most primitive of bacteria are well known for it.  This split comes regularly, every 6 hours.  IF there’s a limit to it based on feeding is unknown, but if it does not, we get comic book style ‘mass from nowhere’ physics, which is a sad thing indeed.

Now we come to the real kicker.  Their body, tentacle and all, are hardened with a thick layer of the calcium they devour.  This makes them extremely durable, but stiff otherwise.  The movie has it even in the soft parts, allowing the silicates to walk through flames with ease.  This strains credibility.  Calcium does have some give, but not that much.  Still, it’s a very good defense, akin to the prehistoric glyptodonts, but even harder and more encompassing. 

Terrifying beasts to say the least and truly a force to be reckoned with by an army, let alone the militia of a small island. 

Symbolism
Inevitability is the key word for these monsters.  They act out a Zombie Apocalypse scenario, complete with the cast holing up in a building to defend themselves from the onslaught.  Unlike a most zombie apocalypses, a simple headshot simply won’t do to put these things down.  The heroes irradiate a herd with a radioactive ore which settles in the bones.  When the creatures feed, they’ll only have a few hours to live, doing them in by the very thing they were meant to cure. 

But they divide, increasing the time, and apparently dooming the heroes.  They are a force of nature unlike many similarly sized monsters in fiction. They are a tide of destruction that could very easily conquer the globe given time. 

It’s hopeless to fight them and that is something rare to see in the west.

Yes, I described how the heroes win, but for a single scene at the end, it doesn’t look that way.

In it, Peter Cushing, Edward Judd and Carole Gray appear to be surrounded by the monsters. 

The cacophony the creatures make drowning out all sounds as they feed on the islanders.  They are going to break onto the last room they have secured themselves in, and all looks lost.

The scene that follows has no dialogue, but is so intense as Peter Cushing and Edward Judd’s characters Decide to spare them, or at least Carole Gray’s character, the painful death the Silicate’s promise.  They go to overdose her on an anesthetic to at least give her a death that will not be painful.  And the way the story is set up, it’s clear that it could have ended that way.  Another lead character, played by Eddie Byrne, died midway through the film, and Peter “I kill Dracula on a regular basis” Cushing had his hand hacked off to prevent the silicates from eating him completely.

It really could have ended on a down note, and it sort of does as the creatures are accidentally recreated elsewhere in the world.  In Tokyo, Japan of all places.  Still an island, but a far larger one at that.

With all that, they are an excellent metaphor for radioactive fallout.  Though not invisible, the inevitability and saturating nature of the beasts fit splendidly. 

They also fit the “Science Makes Mistakes” thing, and can also solve its own problems.  Unlike earlier films, the damage wrought by the mistake is so great it really can’t be glossed over with the defeat of the monsters.  And throughout, the people are distrustful and skeptical off the scientists intentions, but go along anyway.  It’s attributed to the isolationists and old ways of thinking, but the growing distrust with authority is far more a countercultural thing and a sign of changing attitudes in these films in general. 

The film is a throwback showing signs of the times. 

3 Comments

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

DISCLAIMER

Forces of Geek is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and “Safe Harbor” provisions.

All posts are submitted by volunteer contributors who have agreed to our Code of Conduct.

FOG! will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement.

Please contact us for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content.

SOCIAL INFLUENCER POLICY

In many cases free copies of media and merchandise were provided in exchange for an unbiased and honest review. The opinions shared on Forces of Geek are those of the individual author.

You May Also Like

Animation

Let me begin this review by saying that It had been about 12 years since I had seen Paprika before this current watch and...

Movies

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest has an early scene of Bella (Emma Stone) holding a scalpel at an alarming angle and stabbing a corpse’s eyeballs multiple times...

Books

The Folio Society will release a unique and chilling anthology of Weird Tales this March curated by Pulitzer Prize-winner and aficionado of weird fiction,...

Movies

As one of the most celebrated works of science fiction of all time, Frank Herbert’s magnum opus Dune is a dizzyingly expansive narrative, and...