Isle of the Dead (2016) Online

In an isolated island in South Pacific, there is an outbreak in a top-secret military facility where Colonel Aiden Wexler (D.C. Douglas) is researching biological weapon. Ten years later, a small squad is sent to the island to investigate the status of the facility. They shall contact their helicopter a couple of hours later; otherwise the place will be bombed and totally destroyed. Along their journey, they are attacked by zombies and when they reach the building, they find Aiden alive. Out of the blue, Dr. Mikaela Usylvich (Maryse Ouellet Mizanin) that is assisting the mission discloses that is Aiden's daughter.

"Isle of the Dead" is another lame Sci-Fi production, with another terrible story and awful acting. The zombie story is senseless and the situations are quite ridiculous. Why a military squad with a few soldiers should be sent to a doomed island ten years after an incident? If the intention would be to see whether there are zombies or not, wouldn't be easier to monitor using a satellite? The insane Colonel Aiden Wexler contaminates Pugh and attacks three other soldiers. Why he was not killed when he was found? Instead, the survivors bring Aiden, who is contaminated, with them. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Of course I would have to sit down to watch a movie such as "Isle of the Dead", given the fact that it is another zombie movie. And anything even remotely zombie will be appealing to me.

However, I didn't really have much hope or expectations for "Isle of the Dead". Which turned out to be for the best, because this was a very generic and mediocre movie, even for a zombie movie.

The story was adequate enough, though. It is about a small group of soldiers set afoot on a remote and isolated island where they are to discover the disappearance of a previous group of soldiers and also to seek out the chief scientist of a research facility.

It does seem quite like a simplistic storyline, doesn't it? Well, right, because it was. But hey, most zombie movies can't really boast with having intricate and elaborated plot lines and story lines. However, it turned out to be fair enough.

As for the acting in the movie, well I will say that people were doing good enough jobs with their given roles and characters, and taking into consideration the magnitude of the script and storyline. However, it was a shame that Sydney Viengluang didn't have a bigger part than she did, because she does perform quite well in the "Z Nation" zombie TV series.

The special effects in "Isle of the Dead" were actually quite good, taking into consideration the production level of the movie. However, they tended to fall into that classic error of zombie movies, where they put lots of make-up on the face, then forget about the neck and the rest of the body. A classic and stupid rookie mistake to make.

One thing that didn't sit well with me was the über-zombies, the ones that got out of containment and were able to speak and make coherent thinking and planning (for some reason). It just added a level of stupidity to the movie. And also, the ridiculous showdown between the two über-zombies towards the end of the movie was just like a slap to the face with a dead herring. Wow, that was awful.

All in all, then "Isle of the Dead" turned out to be a very genetic and mediocre addition to the zombie movie catalogue. There is nothing noteworthy to be had in "Isle of the Dead", and whether or not you watch it will have little impact on your extended take on the zombie genre.

Now that I have seen it, I can check it off the zombie-watch-list. However, I doubt that I will ever make a second trip back to watch this ever again.

Joey Lawrence (Blossom) and Maryse Mizanin (pro wrestler, Miz's wife) lead Navy Seals into an island to find a doctor left there for 10 years. DC Douglas is that scientist working on a serum to counteract a zombie virus that stemmed (supposedly) from his colleague's (Eric St. John) tinkering with science resulting in the undead spreading throughout the island.

There's all the machine gun fire into the heads of zombies violence in the recognized style of the Asylum productions (very much in the vein of Z-Nation) you come to expect. The "anomalies" zombies are a frightening bunch (good make-up work and the way they shoot them is damned effective; their noise and rabid, unhinged behavior, barely locked away in a room, sets up a foreknowing of what could lie in wait for the heroes), but the combat at the end when Mizanin and Douglas (it is revealed they are daughter and father) duke it out with zombies led by Douglas' rival St. John is just too much…that and I swear one of the sound effects when Mizanin stabs a zombie head makes a chocolate syrup bottle squirt sound! Lawrence is all business and never allows the film to upend his serious take on the character and his mission. There's this bomb that will detonate giving the soldiers only so much time to find Douglas and his work and get the hell off the island. Mizanin is dead set on retrieving information and serum so that her father's work was not in vain and would benefit her superiors. Maryse is French and so her character was written as a scientist included in the group of soldiers, accompanying them in the sole purpose of finding that information important to the military, responsible for the base on the island to begin with. Maryse gets to go all "undead badass" at the end which made the film rather laughable yet charming at the same time. There's this one scene I really liked involving Douglas showing the soldiers some of his "pets", zombies he had encased in cages for constant study…one of the zombies had bulging pores and this mutated, diseased face just peering maniacally at them from behind the glass.

Douglas never should have been trusted, yet the film turns him, oddly, into a sort of hero when battling St. John (mainly because Maryse is badly injured by him) at the end. His twitchy and aggressive behavior is never trustworthy, and when he's told he will be divorced or distanced from the location of his work (and the thought of his work being "stolen", altered, and credited to others), the others should have realized that he was dangerous…ummm, and when he turns out to be a zombie, only humanized by a serum which wears off eventually, that might have been a definite sign that he was a peril to them all. Not to let the bugs get left out, some crawl into (and under) the skin of a soldier and eat him inside out (coming out of his eye even!). Zombies eat, too…can't leave that out, right?

Isle of the Dead has great promise. Of course, the basic plot line is as old as the hills. However, the acting is above par for this kind of film and the camera work and continuity is good. What really raises the film above the thousand (or so it seems) zombie flicks released in the last five years is the amazing zombie makeup and the very realistic special effects. The blood and brains fly on a constant basis and the zombies seem to attack in nearly ever scene. So...some spoilers... Government science lab in the south Pacific where secret experiments go very awry....zombies are the result. Lots of zombies. Crack military team is sent in 10 years later to check for survivors and check out the scene. The huge military labs are investigated and lots of bullets fly. There are also lots of dead and rotted bodies decorating the hallways and offices of said labs. Amazing! The female doctor with the military jocks suddenly finds her father is alive and is the lead scientist that you assume released the secret serum by accident or not? Well, I enjoyed this film up to near the end when it sank into a morass of bullets and black belt fighting with the seemingly endless supply of zombies. As I said the makeup and special effects, camera work, continuity and reasonable acting elevates this to a watchable film. However, by the last 20 minutes I felt like a zombie with the overdone and endless fighting. Oh, I forgot to tell you...the military jocks have just 10 hours to do what their supposed to do.....or BOOM! Just a small nuclear device will visit this lovely tropical island and say goodbye to all zombies and any of our hero group!!! One other little twist....the woman doctor who finds her father is responsible for this hideous this zombie horror have a lovely little coming home to daddy moment. This scene comes at the very end of the film... but not in the way one would think! I give this a 6 out of 10. If you like zombies give this a look.

I just wanted to leave a fair warning for people who are curious enough about "Isle of the Dead" to browse this section of IMDb. The rating and many of the reviews apply an impression of the movie being mediocre. I'm not sure if maybe people nowadays have a distorted understanding of the term "mediocre"? I usually use it to describe something being average, right in the center between "good" and "bad", not having features that justify becoming positively excited about, but also not in a region to evoke anger or similarly negative feelings.

There isn't anything that I could imagine to happen that would make an averagely intelligent person use the term "mediocre" after seeing this movie. Even the makeup, which might pass as average in a competently lit production, is degraded by the director's absence of talent and skill. With, let's say, a "mediocre" amount of perception and experience with movies, it isn't difficult to notice when, where and how to use the lighting available in the sets of this production, to an effect that might efficiently utilize mood, atmosphere and suspense. Like most incapable directors nowadays, Nick Lyon decided to leave these aspects to the sound design, with the idea that you can get an audience to react with tension when loud noise is constantly wearing down their nerves. As a consequence, instead of having zombies that unnerve due to subtle movement discrepancies, giving the observer a growing feeling that something is wrong with that person, standing unstably in the dim light, you get screaming, fidgeting clown-zombies that pound their chests and cheer on the stronger leader-zombies, as they all macho-jerk through brightly lit tunnels, clearly exposing their rubber masks and unevenly painted faces.

The action almost solely consists of shootouts with zombies appearing suddenly and silently out of nowhere, giving this amazing contrast of them behaving as impeccable ninjas until a *camera* (that is to say "the movie audience") has sight of them, which immediately turns them into screaming berserkers, regardless of whether a living human is anywhere near them or not. The remaining 20% of the action are ambitious but inappropriate melee fights, where soldiers decide to not use their ample time to shoot zombies but brawl them until they fall to the ground, a good distance away, and THEN open fire at them. Sarcasm aside, I might give the movie credit for at least decently ambitious melee combat. Sadly, it's getting lost on the dumb situations it is being used in. Just like any element of a movie, it won't cause excitement if it doesn't have a believable purpose and if nothing relatable is at stake.

Like most Asylum movies, Isle of the Dead doesn't have an actual story. Their usual filmmaking process is to acquire a couple of sets that can serve as a location for a shallow plagiarization idea and slap a quickly improvised script on top, that rudimentarily ties the places and events together. The sets for this movie are "jungle", "abandoned factory site" and "abandoned science lab". The script clumsily touches on the usual subjects connected to the zombie genre, without caring about logic or coherence. Regardless of that, the movie isn't shy to fill a sizable amount of its run time with dialog, that after a while becomes painful to listen to.

My recommendation is to avoid this movie and try something less conventional, like "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2016) or something smarter, like "Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead" (2014) (the movie, not the TV series).

Years after a zombie outbreak, a team of soldiers sent to the island stronghold of a reclusive doctor finds his studies on a deadly virus program has unleashed a swarm of zombies on the island and must try to hold off the increasingly intelligent beings to get off alive.

This one wasn't all that bad but it did have its flaws. One of the few things that does come off rather nicely is the zombie action within this one, which tends to follow the channel's standards of action content within here. The film's switches from the short, brief scenarios to the longer, more involved set-ups makes for a good time here when it features the battles with the creatures, from the opening scenes of the compound being overrun and taking out the entire team of soldiers and scientists in the facility's wings and corridors that starts this one off rather nicely, the first scenes of their attack in the jungle where the creatures come pouring out of the jungle walls in waves after them is a strong and effective outing while their confrontation with the horde later on in the underground sections of the entire island coming alive in the facility trying to take them out resulting in constant and continuous gun-battles to hold them off as they retreat from the compound through the rest of the island trying to get to safety that's actually exceptionally fun. When this one gets into the shorter encounters, there's some more fun as these are based more on short, quick gunfights which are fun and thrilling, yet the highlight of it all is the series of rather fun and brutal zombie- on-zombie brawls that really makes this one end on a higher note than expected. Coupled with the rather fun zombie make-up and a nice amount of gore, there's a lot to like with this one. There's still some rather sizable flaws, starting with the rather lame story that really makes no sense at all here. There's little reason for them to even be attempting to weaponize a product the way they state here, and it really manages to strain credibility the way it goes for the group returning after such an extended absence that doesn't seem to show any kind of residual damage in the intervening years. Not only that, but the internal logic within this one comes into question with the idea of being unable to trust their potential prisoner yet continuously do so, long after the time to distrust them becomes obvious, which all make the story here quite hard to swallow. Likewise, there's also the fact that the film also features the same rather lame CGI for the vast majority of its gore and bloodshed sequences that it becomes quite detrimental and distracting during the zombie carnage which really comes off a lot more amateurishly than expected. As some might also question the use of the zombies gaining new abilities here with the enhanced speech and recognition factors, it's not enough to lower this against the other small flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

I don't know what movie all the Negative Nancy's were watching, but from my seat the movie was a fun from the start military-zombie-science movie. Sure there wasn't much character development, nor was the script all that deep. But it was an overall fun spin on our favorite theme. With great scenery, costumes, and just fine zombies. And speaking of the zombies, there was a nice twist or two. No spoilers. ;) Overall, it was fun to watch beginning to end. At the end my family was looking at me funny as I was yelling over and over a particular phrase. I was definitely invested. So of course it's not a big budget film that's going to win an Oscar. It's meant to be. It was created to be what it is. Pure zombie lover's enjoyment. And it absolutely delivers!

As a long time movie reviewer, I've seen a LOT worse...with a bigger budget, better known actors and mega marketing.

As you've seen in other reviews, this zombie movie ties in with a new strain of the Ebola virus and altering it to make the perfect military application.

Okay, cliche...but as original as any other zombie movies I've seen lately.

The make up was pretty good and while some of the acting left a lot to be desired, some others were good.

As I said, not great but certainly not as bad as some of the reviews are saying.

I've watched it a couple of times. I definitely recommend it..

Ok, it's not your top notch zombie movie, but who cares!!!! It was fun to watch. Yes the acting was not to good from some of the actors, but I love Joey Lawrence in anything he plays in!! I'm a big WWE fan and wanted to see Maryse Mizanin, she was pretty good, not a Jody foster but I enjoyed it. Some of the other actors were to over the top but all in all I just like zombie movies!!!! Call it a guilty pleasure! Lol

Probably the worst zombie movie ever made, this feature film should be considered "unwatchable". It takes place on an island that government scientists are experimenting with a mutated strand of the ebola virus. The characters are poorly developed and far removed from their real life counterparts. Navy seals are sent with a really annoying woman CIA agent to assess and recover any research and survivors. The problems is these seals don't act like seals . They seem more concerned with saving infected people, than actually assessing the situation. From start to finish it's horrible acting. Poor set design. Unrealistic make-up and effects. Even the chopper shot in the beginning of the film looks computer animated. There were also really dumb weapons that cannot Exist, such as, a nuke enabled RPG.

If you're looking for a serious summary of this movie, click the back button and read it or check out another review. If someone asked me to review this movie, I'd ask them if they've heard of The Asylum. If they said yes, I'd say it's The Asylum's version of Resident Evil. If they said no, I would say one word: Sharknado.

I've seen a lot of Asylum movies; usually when I come home drunk late at night and the SyFy channel is playing them. They're usually so terrible that you have no choice but to laugh, but this? No. Joey Lawrence was the only "actor" whose name I recognized, and he's horrible, so I figured I'd be laughing the whole time. Once again, no. Not one laugh the entire movie. After watching this garbage, I came here and found out the blonde is some WWE wrestler and her dad is the guy who does Albert Wesker's voice in the Resident Evil games. I've been playing those games on and off since the first one, so the latter is really disappointing. They even named him Aiden Wexler which I never even noticed while watching the film. Once again, not funny. My last complaint would be the horrible military tactics of a "special forces" unit (flagging each other non-stop would be the biggest), but then again, this is an Asylum movie, so you can't expect much. I know they'd never spend money on a military adviser who was actually in a combat MOS.

TL;DR It's an Asylum movie, but it's WAY worse than usual.