Uninhabited (film)

Did You Know?

• The film was based on ten days Bill Bennett spent on North West Island with his brother in the 1970s.
• Uninhabited was filmed on location on Masthead Island, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
• Most of the music was performed by the band The Truth Is.

Plot

Marine biology students Beth and Harry spend ten days on a deserted coral island on the Great Barrier Reef, recording their adventures with a camcorder. They soon realize they are not alone and the island has a disturbing history. They find an abandoned grave next to an old shack, which contains an old drawing and seven tally marks on the wall. Reviewing their camera footage, they discover they were filmed while sleeping.

Beth wants to leave, but Harry believes children are playing pranks. They see fishermen on a boat with guns, and later the grave has been remodeled with red coral and a wooden cross reading "Coral." The next day, severed sea cucumbers hang from a line. Their phone goes missing, and searching for it they encounter Spiro and Elias, the two Greek fishermen.

Beth and Harry are tied up after snooping; Beth is sexually molested, but something disturbs the fishermen and they flee. Beth finds an old journal in the shack and learns the ghost is a girl named Coral, who worked harvesting sea cucumbers in the 1920s. After treading on a venomous stone fish, she was raped by seven men and her soul now seeks vengeance against all men. Harry initially believes it is a hoax.

They plan a bonfire for rescue, but a ringing phone lures Harry to the shack, where Coral kills him with a knife and hangs his naked body above her grave. Beth finds his hanging corpse dripping blood onto the grave and faints.

Reception

Kwenton Bellette of Twitch Film wrote that Uninhabited was often boring, offered no real scares, and had no satisfying conclusion. Corey Danna of HorrorNews.Net stated that Bennett's talent shines through when showing off the island, but the story is not interesting or original. Screen Anarchy commented that it feels at times like a student production and does nothing to redefine the genre, using tired, overused tricks. A review from Horror News gave the film two out of five stars, noting that veteran director Bill Bennett should have delivered a more entertaining film.