Isolation

Billy O'Brien | 2005 | 95 min | Ireland

Similar in style + plot to Carpenter's The Thing, but transplanted to a farm in rural Ireland. The owner of the farm allows a genetics company to perform a trial on one of his cows, but the experiment does not go quite as planned. While performing a routine examination of the calf, a veterinarian is bitten by. . . something. Soon after that incident the occupants of the farm find themselves quarantined, out of contact with the outside world, + hunting that. . . something.

This is a fantastic low-budget horror. It is well paced, well acted, + thoroughly eerie. The make up effects in particular are outstanding. Had anyone attempted to be make this film with CGI it would likely be a laughable failure. Sometimes red dye, corn syrup, + shadows work far better than the high tech alternatives. Consider that a warning to those with an aversion to gore in films. This movie is very gory. Lots of cattle innards. This is also not a movie to be watched by any woman who has ever even briefly thought about pregnancy or childbirth. Ever. For the rest of us: put Isolation high on your list.

I'm not sure why this did not cause more of a stir when it was first released. It certainly deserves the attention. Hopefully it will win a following on video the same (deserved) way Dog Soldiers has in the past couple years.