Isle of the Dead

Isle of the Dead (1945) is a black-and-white horror film from director Mark Robson starring Boris Karloff, ready to watch online on iFILM. On a tiny Greek island in 1912, a handful of people find themselves sealed in by a plague quarantine.

General Pherides comes to honor his late wife's grave, only to find the tomb broken open. As the sickness picks off the islanders one by one, a superstitious old woman insists the real culprit is a vorvolaka — a life-draining thing hiding in human skin — and she points the finger at a young Englishwoman. Karloff plays the iron-willed general whose reason slowly buckles under a fear he refuses to name.

This is one of the nine low-budget chillers producer Val Lewton built at RKO in the 1940s. Where rival studios reached for monster makeup, Lewton worked in shadow, silence and suggestion; the title and mood lift straight from Arnold Böcklin's grim painting. Anyone hunting jump scares will be let down — but if you like slow gothic dread and one genuinely unnerving buried-alive scene, it pays off. Stream Isle of the Dead (1945) online on iFILM.