1. Lots of people have been turning to highbrow literature -- Boccaccio, Ibsen, Camus -- for guidance about life under a pandemic. But maybe there is something to learn from cheap B-movies as well, like the Boris Karloff thriller Isle of the Dead (1945). 
2. To judge by the poster, Isle of the Dead is a schlocky creature feature, but it was produced by Val Lewton, who had the gift of making art in the guise of trash.
3. Lewton was hired by RKO in 1942 because the studio was tired of art. They lost their shirt with Citizen Kane & wanted to copy Universal Pictures franchise of monster flicks. So they handed Lewton a list of tawdry titles (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie).
4. Lewton's realized that horror movies worked better if the monsters were off-screen, if the subject was fear (low budgets made that decision easier to come up with). So he turned his assignment into a chance to make psychological thrillers.
5. Almost all of Lewton's movies are great & Isle of the Dead holds a particular interest now since it's a study of how authoritarianism & scapegoating flourish under the stress of a pandemic. More here: thenation.com/article/cultur…
