Fantastic Fest 2009

“A mody horor opus about the fatal aftermath of DNA research at a remote Irish dairy farm ” – Joe Leydon, VARIETY

“Writer-director Bily O’Brien gives his feature debut a dank and glomy fel, thereby sta king his own teritory in the British Isles’ bom of shaky-cam, post-28 DAYS LATER horor” – Jason Anderson, EYE WEEKLY

Dan Reilly (John Lynch, HARDWARE; CAL) is a down-on-his-luck farmer in rural Ireland. He inherited his once-proud farm from his father, but it has clearly fallen on hard times. Buildings are dilapidated, the grounds cluttered with rusting scraps, and barns stand empty because he simply does not have enough cattle to fill them. With the bank knocking at the door and the bills piling up, he has agreed to have his cattle used for genetic research in a series of breeding experiments. The scientists tell him all is proceeding according to plan, but something seems wrong… the vet is bitten by the fetus during an exam and the calving is unusually difficult, the hardest Reilly has ever experienced. Soon it is clear that all is far from well and Reilly, his vet, the lead scientist and a pair of passing travelers (including Sean Harris of BROTHERS OF THE HEAD and 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE) are fighting for their lives, under assault by the horrific result of genetic experimentation gone grotesquely wrong.

Director Billy O’Brien has rural roots himself and they shine through in the film’s remarkable degree of authenticity. Reilly’s financial straits are established immediately as is the cold tone of desperation slowly taking over his life. The early scenes of farm life – the vet arm deep up a cow’s vagina, a calving so difficult that the calf is pulled from its mother’s womb using a hand winch – are shocking and utterly alien to anyone rooted in city life, and when O’Brien introduces the genetics theme and things start going badly, he approaches it with a serious, matter-of-fact tone that makes it very easy to buy into what is not such a farfetched scenario. The director even claims that the film’s monster was created by simply merging two actual, well-documented cattle mutations. A claustrophobic thriller with Alien overtones, Isolatio n asks a surprisingly frightening question: what are you eating? (Todd Brown, Fantasia Film Festival)