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Voodoo Island (1957)
Topic Started: Sep 18 2005, 07:03 AM (576 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Maybe it was the law of low expectations (if you think a movie is going to be lousy, you can’t be disappointed) but Voodoo Island is actually not as bad as I’d heard. Which is not to say, of course, that it’s particularly good, either. Actually, it’s pretty much From Hell It Came without Tabanga.

Boris Karloff is an author and TV personality who’s famous for exposing hoaxes and charlatans. He’s called in by a wealthy recluse to debunk the “voodoo curse” that is preventing him from building a posh resort on a remote South Sea island. Boris and his expedition of intrepid debunkers find a terrible juju, including voodoo dolls, a living corpse or two, man-eating plants, woman-eating plants, and a bad-tempered tribe of natives.

There are a lot of problems with the film; the intended shocks are usually misfires, and the killer plants are too silly-looking to be really menacing. Worst of all, there’s an ill-advised romance blooming between ship’s Captain Rhodes Reason (King Kong Escapes) and Karloff secretary Beverly Tyler (Beginning or the End); an old lesbian who is part of the expedition is actually much more pleasant and romantic in wooing Bev than the Captain is. Elisha Cook, Jr., as a whiny local realtor is excellent, and so is Adam West in a bit part. The show is pretty much Karloff’s, though, and he does remark at one point, “The public loves to be scared,” although it’s kind of hard for Boris to be scary when he’s dressed like Huntz Hall in a Bowery Boys picture. There is also a giant “coconut crab” that attacks the party, and I couldn’t help but think how tasty it looked. Director Reginald LeBorg also gave us The Mummy's Ghost, The Black Sleep, and Jungle Woman, as well as some Bowery Boys pictures, so the Boris/Sach connection can’t be a coincidence.

Voodoo Island
(matched as a twofer with a better voodoo potboiler, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake) is being released on DVD on Tuesday, Sept. 20. The print and transfer for both films are top-notch, and the trailers are included. (Who wrote the liner notes, though? “Karloff delivers a rare non-monster performance.” Really?!?!?)

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"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Laughing Gravy
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Voodoo Island (1957) Dir. Reginald LeBorg
ITB Shock Theatre #181
Strange Science Cinema #077

I don't think every 11 years is too often to revisit films like this, do you? Or do you?

Funny, I remembered it as being lousy, but when I watched it again, I thought, "Not as bad as I'd remembered, it's okay for this kind of film in this era," and when I re-read my old review I saw I thought it was okay in 2005, too. No doubt when I watch it again in 2027 I'll think, "Hey, that's not as terrible as I thought it was gonna be. Nurse, more Cream of Wheat!"

Million-dollar Dialog:
Boris to his assistant: "What was that I dictated last night in reference to Mitchell's demise?"
Assistant: "Death is a result of an extreme stimulation of the body's defense mechanisms, which when finding no outlet or escape from the primary cause precipitating such emotion in turn panics, commits emotional suicide."
Elisha: "What does that mean?"
Boris: "What does it mean? That he was SCARED to death."

Rex, hacking away at weeds: "These things grow as if they were ALIVE!"

A lovely print on the DVD, by the way; wonder if Kino will get around to releasing this on BD?

Also on the Program

The Shadow episode 4 (survived fire, fell into a trap door in a room that shakes itself to pieces, that sort of thing); Casper in Ground Hog Play, 1956; Casper, now clinically insane, pretends to be a groundhog's shadow so that the little rodent-like creature will play with him; Parlez Vous Woo, 1956; Bluto pretends to be French 'cause Olive prefers the continental type to one-eyed sailors; and Dizzy Dishes, 1954, a wonderful Little Audrey cartoon where Audrey dreams she's Flash Gordon, fighting off a flying saucer invasion - and the cartoons used designs and "background sets" from the first Max Fleischer Superman cartoon!

We also saw the trailer for next week's film, Pharoah's Curse. Wow!
Edited by Laughing Gravy, Sep 4 2016, 06:38 AM.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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