Night of the Big Heat

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and a “slut” are burning up off the coast of Britain

A sultry woman (Jane Merrow) travels to Fara, an Island in Northern UK, to work as the secretary of an author (Patrick Allen). The latter’s naïve wife (Sarah Lawson) runs the Inn where everyone stays, including a polite man (Peter Cushing) and a standoffish scientist (Christopher Lee). It’s the middle of the winter yet temperatures are rising to well over 100 degrees and people are turning up dead. What’s going on?

“Island of the Burning Damned,” aka “Night of the Big Heat” (1967) was made by the same short-lived company that released the similar “Island of Terror” a year earlier, both featuring Peter Cushing and director Terence Fisher. It walks the balance beam between sci-fi and horror and should be appreciated by fans of Lee, Cushing, Hammer, Amicus, Tigon and American International. It helps that some human interest is offered with a tense triangle. Interestingly, the secretary is overtly called a “slut” by the author, which is a little surprising for such seemingly “refined” people.

The story maintains your interest as suspense slowly builds, especially concerning what’s causing the heat and the deaths. There’s a deus ex machina but, hey, the story had to end. Merrow is pretty stunning, but her character needs slapped.

The film runs about 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot at The Swan Inn and Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, England, as well as Dorset.

GRADE: B-/B

Or perhaps it ought to be called "Night of the Slow Burn"? It's all set on a sweltering island whose residents can't quite figure out why it's so hot there yet snowing on the adjacent mainland. That question might be answered by visiting, and rather grumpy, scientist "Hanson" (Christopher Lee) who is staying at the local pub owned by writer "Jeff" (Patrick Allen) and his wife "Frankie" (Sarah Lawson). Just to add to the mystery, a new secretary arrives and it's fairly clear that "Angela" (Jane Merrow) and her boss have some extra-curricular history so the temperature is rising metaphorically too. "Hanson" has a theory - but it's so very fantastic that nobody believes him until the local doctor "Stone" (Peter Cushing) goes to investigate some strange noises, lights and glowing rocks. Might this be just be something volcanic or might it be something more menacing, yet? It livens up a little at the end, but the majority of this is just a rather weakly plodding soap opera with Cushing barely featuring, Lee largely sitting out the first half of the film altogether and the rest of the plot centring around the love lives of the locals. It's only ninety minutes but it did feel quite a bit longer as it took far too long to drag itself into the sci-fi zone I was looking for in the first place. It was rated "X", but suffice to say that's got nothing at all to do with it's horror factor. Disappointing and forgettable, this, sorry.