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Voodoo Woman / The Undead; March, 1957
Topic Started: Jul 14 2016, 06:41 PM (239 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Voodoo Woman (1957) Dir. Edward L. Cahn
The Undead (1957) Dir. Roger Corman
Strange Science Cinema #78-79

First, mad scientist Tom Conway has his way with a beautiful native jungle girl, and "his way" entails turning her into the She-Creature (well, practically) and using her as an instrument of destruction against anyone he doesn't like or just other random cast members. Then, a mad psychologist hypnotizes a well-stacked prostitute and sends her back centuries to the night her past self was executed by beheading for being a witch, and my GOODNESS what a fun and eventful night THAT was. Even Satan showed up for the party, and he dressed (for some reason) like Peter Pan.

We'll start with Voodoo Woman, though.

I'll be honest with ya, there is simply too much going on here for the film to be top-grade bottom-drawer horror. Mostly, the movie is about evil Marla English and stupid Lance Fuller trying to find a "lost voodoo treasure" (hey, I'll bet that even looked stupid in the original script read), hiring tough Mike "Touch" Connors as their guide (and to punch Lance in the face once in a while). Dr. Conway's native girl isn't such a good monster, so he jettisons her and turns the evil-as-can-be Miss English into the She-Creature (practically) and SHE has no compunction about killing ANYBODY, believe you me. Luckily, there's a lot of bad dialog to keep us entertained between monster attacks.

Million-dollar Dialog:
Marla to an ex: "How did I ever get mixed up with a guy like you, anyway?"
Guy: "I think I had some dough at the time."

Mrs. Dr. Conway, describing herself: "I'm a nice all-American girl right out of the slums of Pittsburgh."

And describing Dr. Conway's voodoo laboratory: "He's got everything in there from high-octane gas and gunpowder to pig's blood!"

The monster is the She-Creature costume with a sack dress, a blonde wig, and a face like either a gibbon or Peter Tork, I couldn't tell which (I know it's SOME kind of monkey). It roars like a lion and is suitably frightening. The movie's only so-so, not one of AIP's finest, sorry.

After some snack bar ads and stuff like that, we enjoyed (no we didn't, actually) Popeye for President, a timely 1956 cartoon that stunk (Popeye and Bluto are the candidates, and I'd vote for them over either of the two main party candidates THIS year, bub). We also saw the trailer for next week's million-dollar movie, as a giant square robot stomps our planet in Kronos! WOW!

Okay, let's get on to our next movie, an all-time favorite of mine and it has been since I saw it when I was, oh, 7 or 8. Charles Griffith wrote it and Corman knew he had a good script, so he kept the fog machine on high to hide the ruddy, tiny sets (nobody is ever gonna say the guy didn't know how to direct. I'll grant he made some lousy movies, but not a one of them was badly directed). Pamela Duncan is the hooker/witch; Richard Garland is her boyfriend back in the day; Allison Hayes is the REAL witch (and the sexiest one until Samantha would come along); Billy Barty is her house elf; Dick Miller is a leper; Bruno Ve Sota is the fat-assed innkeeper; Richard Devon is Satan Pan; and Mel Welles (who, when I met him, claimed he wrote his own dialog) is Smolkin, the idiot gravedigger who makes up rhymes.

Again, delicious dialog is a big part of the fun.

Million-dollar Dialog:
After catching a witch who's changed into a rat by putting a flagon over her: "Raise the cup and I'll make mashed weremouse for my gruel!"

Idiot Smolkin rhyme: "Jack Spratt could eat no fat / His wife could eat no lean / And so between the two of them / They licked the coffin clean"

Hot witch talk: "I smell 8 quarts of human blood that will soon enrich the grass!"

The crux of the story, by the way, is this: the prostitute is helping her ancestor survive the execution, but that creates an historical conundrum: if she doesn't die but actually survives, none of her descendants will ever live, but if she dies, she WILL be reincarnated and thus they will all have life. It's tricky. All the cast members have a rooting interest in her choice, not least of all Satan.

If you haven't seen this, or you've only seen the brainless parody they did of it on MST3K, you don't know what you've missed. It's a wonderful little low-budget shocker and one of my faves of all Corman films.

Neither Voodoo Woman nor The Undead got an American release on VHS or DVD, thanks to those idiots at Lionsgate; these were two DVDs I worked on for the British company, and I'm very proud of them.
"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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They sound fun and if a North American DVD/Blu-Ray does come about, we trust you to let us know about it.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Laughing Gravy
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In a moment. It's a damn shame that these films haven't been picked up by Kino or somebody; hopefully, they will.
"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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Agreed, they'd have a guaranteed sale here.

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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