Night of the Big Heat (1967 UK) a.k.a.Island of the Burning Damned

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967)


aka Island of the Burning Doomed starring CHRISTOPHER LEE and PATRICK ALLEN  
JANE MERROW * SARAH LAWSON and PETER CUSHING
directed by Terence Fisher - color - 94m.

The final film in the Sci-Fi trilogy from director Fisher and Planet Films, after Island of Terror (1966). Much of this follows along the same lines as the previous film: there's an alien threat to the inhabitants of a British island. As indicated by the title, the weather has become uncommonly hot and pretty soon certain people are hearing a strange noise in the countryside as a prelude to their deaths by extreme heat.  There's also some standard soap opera revolving around a few characters.
Christopher Lee, acting very grim, is a scientist outsider who is the only one aware of what the threat is. Cushing is a local doctor in a briefer role (I think he may have acted in this as a favor). This has a slower pace than Island of Terror, with Lee, for example, doing a lot of walking about, setting up some tests, and the climax fails to capture that tense, desperate sense of a gamble in Island of Terror, being actually a deus ex machina ending courtesy of nature. The deaths, as well, are not as creepy as those in the previous film (but then again, how could they be?). But it's a solid Sci-Fi alien invasion thriller, with some scary moments. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10
A final note on the trilogy: all the activity/action in each of the films is centralized around a local inn/hotel. The surviving characters always seem to group together at these familiar locations.
As far as I know, this is only available on PAL DVDs and perhaps not even on VHS tapes here in the States.