[Isolation]
Plot:A young couple on the run take refuge at a lonely farm, only to find that the farmer has been supplementing his income by allowing genetic experiments on his cattle. A mutated calf is born and soon goes on the hunt for human flesh.

Cast: Essie Davis, Sean Harris, Marcel Iures, Crispin Letts, John Lynch, Ruth Negga, Stanley Townsend.

My Thoughts:Run of the mill morality tale that delivers somewhat.

Review:Billy O' Brien's "Isolation" is certainly not a film that we haven't seen before. It's a movie where the age old lesson of man messing around with nature only leads to dire consequences, death, and destruction is learned by everyone involved. But just because it follows that same tired old storyline, doesn't necessarily mean it's a total waste of time. The movie, set in Ireland...deals with two young runaways who hole up in a trailer outside a rural farm. Little do they know that on this farm, some experimentations are being done with cattle by scientists and the farmer himself, of course is taking $$$ to keep quiet about the whole illegal deal.

When one of the cows gives birth to a calf, that's pretty much where things go from weird, to bad, to worse. The experimentation has caused the newborn calf to be impregnated with dangerous parasitic organisms. "Isolation" quickly takes the typical route after the birth of the calf, with the parasites being studied by some of the scientists on the scene, and of course they manage to escape and bite people who then go on to infect others. In that regard it's kind of like "The Cave", which was released back in 2005. But the rural rain-soaked atmosphere does give the movie a certain eerieness considering the situation that is at hand. The characters in the film other than the young couple, aren't really noticeable and mostly end up as fodder and monster food, seeing as how they all fit the typical cliche for a film like this. You have the people caught in the middle, the man who was a part of the illegal operations until he realizes the error of his ways, and of course the scientist who will stop at nothing (including killing his own cohorots) to succeed and puts the work ahead of human and animal life alike.

"Isolation" does offer up some very vicious and nasty looking creatures however. I wouldn't know how to describe them, but they look kind of like crawfish in a way, yet mutated. Although it takes an awful long time (the first half hour of the film actually) for the creatures to finally spring into action...O'Brien who wrote and directed the film, certainly knows how to deliver a really messed up looking creature for his monster movies. The best part of all was there is no CGI used at all to bring these monstrosities to life, and in any film where the creatures look very different from the ones I've seen in any other monster movie, and where no CGI is involved...is always a plus.

You won't find yourself caring for many of these characters, and probably the only exception to that rule would be the lead female in the film who's a young woman who didn't ask nor want to be in the situation at hand, and simply finds herself thrust into it and has to find some ay to survive if she doesn't want to end up as monster food. "Isolation" make no mistake, is a very cliche, and very ordinary monster movie, where those who you'd expect to die do die, and those who you'd expect to live do live. Well.....depending on whether or not you watch this genre of film enough to know the usual patterns by now.

However, Billy O'Brien has brought the fun and excitement back to the quote unquote "run of the mill creature feature" with "Isolation". Which offers up interesting and gross looking cgi-less monstrosities, a very effective atmosphere for the chaos to be set perfectly in, and some great directing. It's definitely a film that makes up for the total embarassments called "creature features" that have been released over the past few months.

Positives:Very atmospheric, great monsters, good acting by the female lead, and great directing by O' Brien.

Negatives:The creatures finally begin to wreak havoc 30 to 35 minutes into the movie. That's a bit too long of a wait for me.

Overall:Worth seeing atleast once.





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