What could be more relaxing than spending some time on an island?
Unlike the stodgy, uptight mainland, islands offer the perfect setting to slow down, sink your weary feet into the cool sand, and listen to the waves gently lap against the shore, preferably with some sort of umbrella-topped drink in hand.
Even non-tropical islands in cooler climes offer the tantalizing prospect of peace, quiet, and built-in protection from the horrors and stresses of the outside world. In short: Bliss.
Of course, the other side of that coin is terror.
What if the island you find yourself on, miles away from mainstream civilization, with a daunting body of water separating you from the life you’ve always known and a resident population that takes none too kindly to strangers, proves itself closer to perdition than paradise?
They may be beautiful, but islands, with their inherent sense of isolation, also lend themselves all too well to horror.
So, before you book your next vacation, fill your head with dread with 10 of the best island-set horror movies.
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
In this early black-and-white adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, a sailor stranded on an island finds himself caught up in the dastardly schemes of a demented doctor with a God complex.
Can he escape with his virtue intact, or will he be forced to mate with a beautiful woman who happens to be part-panther?
Keep your eyes peeled for an alarmingly hirsute Bela Lugosi, who joined the cast under financial duress just one year out from his star-making turn as the dapper Count Dracula.
Isle of the Dead (1945)
Not to be outdone by his sometimes-rival Lugosi, Boris Karloff offers his own take on island horror in this Val Lewton-produced film. In it, he plays a general in the Balkans War who visits the Greek island where his late wife is buried, only to find her grave defiled.
Are the local peasants responsible, or is something supernatural at play?
Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse for poor Boris when a plague breaks out and he’s forced to quarantine on the island; madness ensues.
Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)
This stylish giallo—a type of Italian thriller in which glamorous people meet grisly ends, often at the hands of a mysterious masked and/or black-gloved killer is directed by horror master Mario Bava and stars the stunning Edwige Fenech, an icon of the subgenre.
If you’ve never dipped a toe into giallo’s bloody waters, this proto-slasher set on a remote island is an excellent starting point.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)
A bizarre and charmingly dated tale of a pretentious theatre troupe who, at the behest of their overbearing director, decide to exhume a corpse on an island off the coast of Miami. They use the corpse in a black magic ritual that, naturally, goes awry and leads to a rather unpleasant zombie uprising situation.
Director Bob Clark would go on to launch the modern slasher phenomenon in earnest just two years later with his notorious holiday horror classic Black Christmas.
The Wicker Man (1973)
Could this be the best island-set horror movie of all time? It’s debatable, but few would deny that this folk horror behemoth is at least in the running for the title.
When a by-the-book, God-fearing police officer is sent to a remote Scottish island to search for a missing child, he gets far more than he could have ever anticipated when he meets the gleeful pagans that make up the local populace, led by Christopher Lee’s menacingly gracious Lord Summerisle.
Zombie (1979)
Another Italian master of horror, Lucio Fulci, directed this ultra-gory tale of a cursed Caribbean island plagued by hordes of shambling, decaying zombies.
This movie is notorious for two gotta-see-‘em-to-believe-‘em moments: An underwater shark vs. zombie battle, and some of the worst eye trauma ever committed to film.
You think you’ve had a painful splinter? Brother, think again.
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
100 years after the publication of Wells’ novel, this adaptation hit the big screen starring late screen legends Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (as the titular doctor) alongside The Craft’s Fairuza Balk, who brings the alluring cat/woman hybrid to life.
Sadly, the production was plagued with problems and the film bombed at the box office. Still, it’s an interesting ‘90s artifact and a unique update on the story.
Sweetheart (2019)
After surviving a shipwreck, a young woman finds herself marooned on an uninhabited island, where she must fight a strange monster who surfaces every night to stalk her.
Gilligan could never. Hell, even Tom Hanks and Wilson would probably crack under the pressure.
Caveat (2020)
This debut feature horror film from Damian McCarthy, director of last year’s disturbing Oddity, follows an amnesiac who takes a job looking after a mentally ill woman in an isolated island mansion off of the Irish coast.
What could go wrong?
If you guessed “nearly everything,” then congratulations—perhaps you might do a better job of declining decidedly suspicious employment opportunities than our hapless protagonist has.
Blink Twice (2024)
Zoë Kravitz made her directorial debut with this infuriatingly timely tale of two young women who find themselves whisked away to an island paradise by a seemingly charming (and improbably sexy) billionaire, played with power and nuance by Channing Tatum.
The script, which Kravitz also co-wrote, is simultaneously clever, funny, horrifying, and deeply upsetting, and calls to mind real life villains ranging from Epstein to Cosby to [insert practically any evil billionaire here].
Trigger warning: This film portrays sexual assault, but if you have the emotional bandwidth to handle it, it’s more than worth the watch.
