When island doctor Landers (Eddie Byrne) stumbles over a dead body that
is completely boneless, a condition for which he understandibly has no
explanation), he calls upon two scientists from the mainland, Doctor
Stanley (Peter Cushing) and Doctor West (Edward Judd) - who brings his
girlfriend (Carole Gray) - to investigate, and they soon find out that the
local cancer research center has developed a silicate-based lifeform
that's supposed to eat tumors - only it eats bones instead, apparently. At
the cancer research center, everybody is already dead, but the silicate
based creatures (called Silicates from here on) have long left the lab and
are now roaming free, and what's worse, they multiply by cell division
every few hours. Soon, the Silicates have almost overrun the island, and
all of the islanders lock themselves in inside the community center. West
and Stanley (who has lost one hand to the creatures already by this point)
meanwhile have found out that the creatures are allergic to Strontium-90 -
so they decide to contaminate the whole cattle population of the island
and use it as bait (after all, cattle has bones as well, right?). The
Silicates eat the bait alright, but that doesn't immediately slow them
down, and soon they are all over the community center and even find their
way in ... and they only die collectively and all of a sudden from
radiation before they have killed the entire human island population, our
heroes included. One of these British science fiction films
that will strike one as nothing short of silly upon closer examination,
and of course the special effects are slightly laughable and corners have
been cut to keep the budget low - yet while watching it, the whole thing
(including its so-called science) makes perfect sense in itself, and a
compact directorial effort and great cast (first and foremost of course
Peter Cushing) more than make up for all the film's shortcomings. Ok, so
the film is sci-fi-trash no matter which way you look at it, but pretty
good trash nevertheless.
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