Voodoo Island (1957)

To put this in perspective: "Voodoo Island" is still waaaay better than anything Jerry Warren, Larry Buchanan or Bill Rebane ever put out (at least it has real actors and something approaching a budget), but if Karloff wasn't in it, no one would have even noticed this little piece of static time-filler.Problems with basic fact checking (voodoo is a Caribbean phenomenon, not a Polynesian one) production values (lets go to Hawaii to film our movie...and then film everything in black and white!), plotting (Elisha Cooke's demise and Karloff's acknowledgment that voodoo is real are completely flat and unmoving), casting (no one really is all that bad in this, but several actors are clearly phoning it in), dialog (the romantic arc between the two romantic leads reads and sounds like an ABC after-school special) and a complete lack of any momentum or suspense in the screenplay...all these problems consign "Voodoo Island" to Z movie dustbin status. You'll like Karloff, but he can't carry this film far enough.

The film begins with a rich guy hiring Boris Karloff to get to the bottom of a zombie-like trance one of his employees is experiencing. Karloff is apparently a world-famous occult debunker and he assures everyone that the man is NOT a zombie and the island this man recently visited it NOT endowed with evil powers. So, Karloff and a motley crew arrive on the island--only to find that the place is even worse than Newark. In fact, it's filled with man-eating plants and voodoo.Oddly, in the midst of all this silly carnage and occult, two characters fall in love and share some passionate moments. I don't know about you, but being stranded on a homicidal island and seeing my associates eaten or killed is NOT an aphrodisiac and this is the definite low-point of this silly and rather pointless film. Technically, this isn't a horrible film like PLAN 9 or THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN. The acting is just tolerable enough that the film manages to eke out a score of 3--though the terribly dull and silly script was just too much to allow the film to achieve a rating higher than 3. Imagine the work it took to put Boris Karloff in a film and STILL make it dull and tedious! Unless you are a die-hard fan of Karloff or like watching bad films, then I'd avoid this one. Sadly, it's bad but just not silly enough to make it fun to watch and make fun of it.

This one must have been done for the nice Hawaiian vacation the cast got on Kauai. There couldn't be any other possible reason.After one man comes back from an expedition to a Pacific island in a cataleptic state, a whole expedition is sent to prove there ain't no voodoo being practiced on that island where some developer wants to put up a big resort.Boris Karloff heads our intrepid expedition that consists of Rex Reason, Beverly Tyler, Jean Engstrom, Murvyn Vye and Elisha Cook, Jr. Our men and women encounter zombies, carnivorous plants, and voodoo practicing natives. All of which is supposed to scare the audience.Since it was Hawaii, the least they could have done was spring for color. The special effects were riotously funny.The film was selected for the gay cinema salute of TCM this month and I will say that the lascivious looks that Jean Engstrom gives Beverly Tyler plus the way she put down Rex Reason when he tried to make a pass at her was pretty good. I agree with the TCM guest programmer who said that the juveniles who saw this in the drive-ins in 1957 got their first exposure to lesbianism.But it sure could have been in a better film. Voodoo Island has the distinct aroma of tax write-off.

"Voodoo Island" was Boris Karloff's first American film in four years. Nearing his 70th birthday, good parts must have been hard to come by, given that the old Gothic style horror for which he became famous, was now not in vogue.Hotel entrepreneur Howard Carlton (Owen Cunningham) is planning a new hotel/resort on a distant Pacific Island. A survey team that had been sent out earlier disappeared except for Mitchell (Glenn Dixon) who returned in a zombie like state. Carlton hires Philip Knight (Karloff) an investigative reporter to investigate the remote island where the disappearances occurred.The expedition includes Knight, his assistant Sara Adams, Carlton's front man Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye), Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom), local resort manager Martin Schuler (Elisha Cook) and his assistant Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason). Knight also insists that Mitchell be brought along. Before they leave for the island, Mitchell mysteriously dies and a voodoo death warning is left.When the expedition arrives at the "voodoo" island, strange things start to happen. First their boat breaks down and later they discover their food supply spoiled trapping them on the island all the while under the watchful eyes of mysterious natives. Then, while enjoying a swim Claire is killed by a flesh eating plant. The rest are captured by the natives. Schuler refuses to leave and later becomes a zombie as does Finch while watching two children play. Will the others escape?Karloff is totally miscast as the fast talking "Gerardo" type investigative reporter. Although he does his best, he certainly deserved better. He would make two more films in 1958 and then disappear from the screen until 1963 when Roger Corman "rediscovered" him for "The Raven".The cast spends most of the film trudging across the jungle island. We never see any so-called black magic and are left to wonder how the zombies are created. We do get to see some cheap looking dolls with pins in them though. This was obviously a film on a low budget. Most of it was shot outdoors and the special effects are cheaply done.Strictly for the lower half of a double bill.