GRAND ISLE no stars

If "Grand Isle" had been made in the 1940's in black-and-white it would have been a B-Movie and probably a pretty good one but we are now 20 years into the 21st century and movies have gotten bigger, glossier and a lot more explicit but not necessarily better so "Grand Isle" is a '40's B-Movie tarted up with sex, violence and a highly improbable storyline about a young handyman, (Luke Benward), who finds himself holed up for the night with an obviously psychopathic couple, (Nicolas Cage and KaDee Strictland), in a big old house during a hurricane.

It's a move that cries out for the Val Lewton treatment with someone like Jacques Tourneur at the helm but what we get instead is something akin to '70's softcore horror porn with a surprisingly low-key performance from Cage. This time round it's Strictland who has the showier part while young Benward has both the looks and just enough acting chops to suggest he just might make it in the movies but the best performance by a mile comes from Kelsey Grammer as an investigating detective whose idea of talking down a shooter is suggest they have a beer together. Grammer seems to be having so much fun that he gives you the impression you might be watching a good movie; I can assure you you're not. A C+ for effort.