A spooky seaman\u2019s tale, \u201cThe Isle\u201d screened at Norwich Film Festival in 2018 with an introduction from co-writer and director Matthew Butler-Hart. Butler-Hart describes the film as influenced by slow-burn horror of the 1970s, and he also spoke about the inspiration for the story \u2013 Eilean Shona, an island off the coast of Scotland that had a thriving community until the mid-nineteenth century, at which point people started to leave. A stranger was murdered, various myths circulated, and the population dwindled.<\/p>\n
From this premise, Butler-Hart crafts a tale of haunting, grief, guilt and fear, while also promoting Eilean Shona where most of the film was shot. As a tourist piece, \u201cThe Isle\u201d certainly offers some beautiful landscapes that provide a stunning backdrop. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of production, as Butler-Hart recounted to this writer some of the trials involved in the shoot. After a three-hour drive from Glasgow to the Scottish coast, cars containing cast, crew and equipment had to be loaded onto boats that then navigated the sea in gale force winds. During the three-week shoot, weather conditions on Eilean Shona changed regularly from suitable to utterly appalling. This uncertainty feeds into the film\u2019s drama, as the island is an eerie place where one can imagine mysterious and even malevolent forces rising, so it may not leap to the top of favoured vacation venues.<\/p>\n
\n