The Presence (1992)

Great Film overall

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Even for television standards this movie is bad, a lifeless exercise in non-entertainment that rehashes all of the old Dr Moreau clichés into one wholly unsatisfying new variant. In fact the film is so poorly made that it lacks all the basics of movie-making; for instance, there is no beginning to the story, so you are left waiting forever for something to happen, and on top of that there is no ending either. What we do have are a lot of minor scenes, mostly containing dialogue, with some incidents occurring here and there. The film doesn't even have a back story to it, instead murky events of the past are merely hinted at and the whole picture is never developed.What we do learn is that twenty years previously some scientists have been doing some gene-altering experiments which have resulted in affected folk turning into hideous mutant creatures. That's it. Most of the suspense is copied from other films; for instance at the beginning there are loads of underwater shots with sinister music playing, copied from JAWS, but this time some cheap-looking tentacles are to blame (what do they belong to? who knows - and frankly you won't care by the time this film drags to a close).Later, a mutant is hiding in the ventilation system of the building, with ALIEN the obvious inspiration. The mutant action is just an excuse to show off some makeup, turning a guy who looks like Mick Jagger into somebody only that little bit weirder, and another guy into a silly STAR TREK alien lookalike. The only special effects the film contains are some offscreen gun battles and a couple of morphing effects, which seemed to be popular at the time as far as I can remember, but now look dated to the extreme.The script is strictly at soap level, with the cast populated by only a few faces familiar from television. Although a diverse group of characters is assembled - a computer nerd kid, a shifty businessman, a Hispanic soldier - nothing is ever done with them; they just sit around and talk for ages and then the film ends. Because DANGER ISLAND has a total lack of characteristics which make a film enjoyable - no action, excitement, plot, character development, suspense or originality - I am forced to rate it as being the lowest of the low.

With it's limited budget for that time and near-unrecognizable cast (Lockhart and Beymer are about your best bet), this was a pilot for a show that obviously wasn't picked up.Many people compare it to Lost, and some seem to want to conclude this is an imitation of Lost (created over a dozen years before Lost?) The lineup wasn't bad. Kathy Ireland as a model, a few kids, concerned parents and grownups, villain in Beymer and some very attractive ladies along, including Kathy Ireland.As we know from the Star Trek pilot, had the show been picked up, nearly this entire cast could have been rehauled (and more than likely several would have bowed out).Growing sorely disenchanted with Lost as it progressed, I do remember this movie airing and it is fun to go back and watch it on youtube.Harmless entertainment, and yes, it IS entertaining.

My main problem with "Danger Island", also known as "The Presence" is that it tries to accomplish way too much. It is part airline disaster/ island survival, and then morphs into a quite intricate biological laboratory experiment gone horribly wrong horror movie. The whole thing seems overly ambitious for a TV movie, and indeed it collapses under the weight of the underdeveloped script. Logic is gone for good, when the laboratory which has been abandoned since 1976, seems to have a miraculous and unlimited source of electricity. The monster transformations are not bad, but they're not worth sitting through 90 minutes of this scrambled mess. - MERK

I agree with the comments made by other users, but have to disagree with the trivia section..This film did become a very successful TV series, however they changed the name from "Danger Island" to "Lost" and just spent a bit more money on the special effects (and threw in the odd polar bear..) :-)Here in the UK this film is either shown at 3pm or 3am (which should tell you a lot!) Very much like the ATeam in its production values and storyline, so if you used to enjoy the Ateam in the 80's, you will find this film a very easy watch for a couple of hours on a rainy afternoon.Having just seen the film again (seen it a few times now over the years) I think it would make the basis of a very good computer game. (everything seems to be level based - probably due to the limited budget)It also has the Human from the "Alien Nation" TV series in it (Gary Graham - most recently seen as Vulcan Ambassador Soval in "Enterprise"), and also one of the very first uses of computer generated "morphing".