Island of the Dead is one of those bad movies that I still find something to like about because I just find the concept so interesting/promising. Multi-millionaire developer Rupert King (Malcolm McDowell) has engineered a new low income housing community for the homeless of New York City to be built on Hart Island. Hart Island (a real place) is the Potter's Field of New York, where the homeless and lost are buried in mass graves. What no one realizes is that King has darker motives (linked to his ties with medical research) in store for the future residents of Hope City. Meanwhile a Missing Persons detective (Talisa Soto in a wasted role) is tracking down the last victim of 'The Double Dutch Killings' in hopes of laying to rest the haunting image of the dead girls skipping rope. This is a hope that most of the audience will share, as we see the trio skipping rope and chanting a morbid little ditty over and over and over and over again. Sadly screenwriters Tim Southam (who also directed) and Peter Koper (who came up with the promising idea) fail to develop these two storylines or the characters and their subplots in any great detail. This forces director Southam to pad the movie with far too many 'atmospheric' music montages and gives co-star Talisa Soto nothing to do but look sullen and haunted (this after giving her character an intriguing introduction, pity). Sadly the 'vengeful fury of the dead' is unleashed via a hord of illness inducing insects (as opposed to simple zombies) with little information given to the viewer as to why it is happening. One or two ghostly spectres or whispering voices would have helped, so you can add the trio of little girls to the list of missed opportunities. What this movie badly needed was a major reworking of its core story elements, especially in regards to the supernatural aspects in the second and third acts, then, perhaps, it might have been better. If you really want to depress yourself, just think what Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster (or John Elder), Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee could have done with this material back in the glory days of Hammer Studios. So it goes.