On a remote Irish farm, a man has been conducting genetic experiments with cow DNA in order to get the cows to reproduce faster. Things go horribly wrong though and the cows start giving birth to some horrific kind of creatures. Now, a couple of kids on the run and the farm owner, along with two others has to do everything in their power to stop the "disease" from spreading beyond the farm.
Isolation was a movie that I hadn't heard too much about before I saw it, but it was all a very pleasant surprise that somewhat reminded me of Carpenter's The Thing, although it was a bit different. The movie starts out in a gross way right from the start with a young lady having her hand inside a cow's butt. It might sound funny, but was quite gross and that was only the start, and as the film progressed, things just kept getting more and more nasty to say the least. I gotta say though that one reason to why I found Isolation to be such a good film was because of the seriousness it had to it and that it never stepped away from for even the slightest moment. A lot of films has a tendency to mess up the good atmosphere they sometimes have to it, but fortunately this one was not like that as it had a great dreaded atmosphere glued on it all the way through.
I don't think I've seen the actors before, but I gotta say that they truly delivered, and that is all of them. What made them so good might've been the realistic feel the movie had to it (even though dealing with mutated cows) and the characters actually felt like ordinary human beings one could releate to, instead of stereotyphical horror film actors that were just in some movie.
 
95 percent of Isolation takes place inside a barn and even though that might sound boring, trust me, it was not. It builds tension which just keeps increasing the further the movie goes and delivers full-on horror at a few places in the film that were pretty much great. For most of the time, the movie was kinda dark, not too dark though and I felt like that only added to the level of suspense. There were a few scenes that made me cringe and if you want blood and gore and be grossed out at the same time, this would be an excellent choise. Good thing though is that the gory scenes were justified and not just there for shock value and at the same time being somewhat pointless (which quite often can be the case), but instead they felt necessary and like I said before, justified.
Another movie it somewhat reminded me of was Alien, not saying that it ripped that film off, but that it had some similarities. No big thing at all though and Isolation is the type of film that easily manages to stand on its own. It looked very slick and was nicely directed, not to mention how gruesome it was, but at the same time always very suspenseful. While you don't get to see much of the horrible creature, beast, monster - whatever you wanna call it - it might've been a good thing because that only added suspense as well. I'm really happy that there were no humour in the film because I loved the serious tone that it had to it at all times and while it might not be very "scary", you will most likely feel a bit uncomfortable when watching it.
Maybe not for vegans, but sure a good pick for fans of good serious horror cinema.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: The Calf
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Billy O'Brien
WRITING CREDITS: Billy O'Brien
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Essie Davis, Sean Harris, Marcel Iures
COUNTRY: UK, Ireland
RUNTIME: 95 min
RATING: 8/10
Isolation Website/IMDB Click here
Isolation Trailer Click here
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