Voodoo Island (1957)

... aka: A Ilha do Terror (Terror Island)
... aka: Isla de sortilegio (Island of Sorcery)
... aka: L'isola stregata degli zombies (The Island of Haunted Zombies)
... aka: Silent Death

Directed by:
Reginald Le Borg

Gazillionaire industrialist Howard Carlton (Owen Cunningham) wants to open a luxury resort hotel on a previously-uninhabited island in the South Pacific and sent a team of engineers and architects there to get started. Of that team, only Mitchell (Glenn Dixon), managed to return but he's now in some kind of zombie-like trance; unable to do much of anything other than blankly stare straight ahead. Doctors are unable to find a sign of anything physically wrong with him. At a loss about what to do and with millions already spent on the project, Howard calls in famous writer, TV host and professional monster / paranormal debunker Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff). Phillip has already managed to disprove many tall tales in his day, including that of the Loch Ness Monster, and welcomes the challenge of traveling to the new island to prove it all to be a hoax... or not. He still recommends that Carlton promote the hotel as being in voodoo country to make it seem mysterious and alluring to future vacationers regardless of the outcome. While they're making plans for the trip, a phone goes dead when plane tickets are being ordered and a plant on a model of the hotel wilts and drips blood. Talk about your bad omens!

Accompanying Phillip on his trip are Carlton's right hand man Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye), Carlton's chief designer Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom) and Phillip's research assistant Sarah Adams (the lovely Beverly Tyler). Carlton also insists Mitchell come along, hoping the trip will somehow flip a switch and get him out of his trance, so physician Dr. Wilding (Herbert Patterson) tags along as well. The group fly to Hawaii and from there take one of Carlton's private planes. Bad weather and problems with their radio equipment force them to land early on another island where Adam West makes his film debut as a weather radio operator. While there, strange static interference blocks communication elsewhere and Mitchell experiences strange spikes and drops in his blood pressure, which enable him to stand up and move.

Another plane trip and they finally make it to Wake Island, the nearest place to stay before venturing on to the unnamed island (we shall call it “Voodoo Island” from here on out) about 4 miles away. There they're greeted by macho, heavy-drinking former Navy boat captain Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason) and trading post owner Martin Schuyler (a typically jittery Elisha Cook Jr.), who stands to profit greatly if the resort hotel is actually built. Their first night there, Mitchell crawls off and dies and does so pointing right in the direction of Voodoo Island. The following day, Dr. Wilding flies back to the city to perform an autopsy while the other six head off toward their destination. Not even a “duwanga bag” containing ashes and six “death wish” notes left on the dock can keep them from it. This crew just doesn't seem to give a shit about warning signs, do they? That goes double for Karloff's character, who's convinced there are “perfectly sound and logical answers” to everything.

By the time the gang finally make it to their destination, their ship is out of commission and over half of the film is over. The film then plods along some more with scenes of everyone wading through water and walking and swatting mosquitoes and sweating and machete-ing their way through the brush and finding signs of the previous expedition. Every once in awhile the camera will shoot over the trees where natives spy on them. As far as action is concerned we, uh, get the leading lady almost getting a concussion from a falling crab. With only about 20 minutes left in this 76 minute movie come our first signs of a monster when Claire decides to go skinny dipping by a waterfall and is attacked by some carnivorous, snake-like plants with octopus-like tentacles that can live on land or in the water. The plants show up to scare the cast a few times and also eat a little native girl but that's about it for them. Things end on a pretty anti-climactic note and the whole thing is predictable, talky and painfully unexciting.

The one point of note and perhaps only interesting aspect of the film is the inclusion of a clearly lesbian character with the older and more experienced Claire rebuffing the advances of the studly Matthew while warming up to the repressed Sarah (“I could make you become alive, dear.”) and hoping to bring her into her “exclusive” and “private” world. Once Sarah catches on to Claire, she flees into the night (and eventually and predictably into the arms of Gunn) with about as much fear as she does when a man-eating plant tentacle wraps around her. Sure, this is a gross characterization of lesbians as predatory ice queens, but it's still quite unique for a sci-fi / horror flick of this time period. It's also about the only thing that's worth mentioning and even that angle is pretty much dropped and forgotten after the one awkward scene.

Filmed on location in Kaua'i, Hawaii, so at least the scenery is nice, this was made back-to-back with producer Howard W. Koch's action flick Jungle Heat for the short-lived Bel-Air Productions. Both films were made by most of the same crew, both feature scores by Les Baxter and both feature Reason and Dixon in supporting roles. Bel-Air were also responsible for the underrated, all-star-cast THE BLACK SLEEP (1956) and the little-seen mummy film Pharaoh's Curse (1957).

For its 1962 theatrical reissue, Voodoo Island was re-titled Silent Death and played on a double feature with The Black Sleep, which itself was re-titled Dr. Cadman's Secret. For their 2005 “Midnite Movies” DVD, MGM paired it with THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1959).

★1/2

Crimson Cult, The (1968)

... aka: Black Horror: le messe nere
... aka: Crimson Altar, The
... aka: Curse of the Crimson Altar
... aka: Curse of the Crimson Cult
... aka: Reincarnation, The
... aka: Spirit of the Dead
... aka: Witch House, The

Directed by:
Vernon Sewell

Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele and Michael Gough all in one horror film? Pinch me, I'm dreaming. Directed by the same man who brought us the ho hum Ghost Ship (1952) and the atrocious THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968), which star Peter Cushing claimed was his worst-ever horror film in interviews? I guess I'll keep my expectations low. Following the opening credits is a quote from an unnamed "Medical Journal" which tells us that the combination of hallucinogenic drugs and hypnosis may "induce the subject to perform actions he may not normally commit." This is immediately followed by a Satanic black mass set in a green-lit dungeon featuring a topless blonde with strategically placed hair getting whipped by a dominatrix wearing pasties, a woman holding a chicken, a man with a goat and a muscle man blacksmith prepping a red hot branding iron. Steele, looking extremely striking in green face paint and a feathered ram's horn headdress, pops in and announces herself as "Lavinia, Keeper of the Black Secret" in an echo voice. She instructs Peter Manning (Denys Peek) on what he needs to do, which is sign his soul away to Satan, stab the blonde sacrifice and then get branded to seal their pact.

After receiving an odd letter from Peter, his brother Robert (Mark Eden), who runs an antique shop in London, decides to head on down to Greymarshe to see if he can locate his missing sibling. He's just in time for "Witch's Night;" an annual celebration in the area that involves games, fireworks, a burning of a witch effigy and, of course, parties. While driving down an old country road he runs right into a panicked blonde in a pink mesh body stocking being chased by a car. That turns out to just be a "sophisticated game of hide and seek." On to Craxted Lodge he goes, where a wild shindig is well underway. Young folks guzzle down champagne, smoke weed and dance, and this happens to be the second 1968 British horror film I've seen in a week to contain body painting (the other being CORRUPTION), which must have been the in-thing in swingin' Brit culture at the time. Robert runs into the blonde again. She introduces herself as Eve (Virginia Wetherell) and she's the niece of the man Robert came there to see; J.D. Morley (Lee).

Despite numerous clues suggesting the contrary, J.D. claims to have never seen Robert's brother, but offers up a place for Robert to the next few days while he searches for him. John Marshe (Karloff), a professor, witchcraft expert and collector of instruments of torture, shows up in a wheelchair to tell our hero all about the witch and explains that there's always been a link between those who burnt Lavinia at the stake in 1652 and those who've mysteriously died in the area. While staying in Craxted, Robert keeps receiving warnings to get out from neurotic dim-wit butler Elder (a wasted Gough) and then starts having bizarre nightmares involving psychedelic / kaleidoscopic swirls, his brother calling out to him and Lavinia trying to force him to sign a book in blood before stabbing him. After one such dream, he even wakes with a real wound on his arm. Robert, with help from Eve, must piece together the clues before he ends up just like his dearly departed brother.

Things look very good thanks to talented cinematographer John Coquillon and all of the actors do what they can but there's only so much that can be done to try to overcome a poor screenplay and a certain overworked, predictable blandness this entire film possesses. Neither the plot nor the characters are adequately developed and the ending feels rushed in how it attempts (and fails) to tie up all the loose ends. Steele, who looks fantastic and is just perfect in these kind of roles, and Karloff, who is given most of the humorous lines, probably come off best amongst the principles, though they, Lee and Gough are strictly supporting players despite the billing order. While shooting this in January, 1968 under freezing conditions, supposedly poor Boris (who was 81 years old at the time) developed pneumonia and never quite recovered from it. That makes frigid outdoor scenes of the feeble actor - steam exiting his mouth after each line - more than just a little sad to sit through.

Curse of the Crimson Altar first hit U.S. theaters in 1970 under the title The Crimson Cult. For this initial American release, some of the kinkier moments (like the lady with the whip) and Wetherell's brief nude scenes were removed so it could secure a PG rating. All of those scenes have since been reinserted for the DVD version. Though the credits say it was based on a story by Jerry Sohl, it's actually partially based on H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Dreams in the Witch House." The cast also includes Rupert Davies in a brief role as a vicar, Rosemarie Reede as a secretary, Michael Warren as Basil, a mute, black-clad man in sunglasses who pushes Karloff's character around and Roger Avon as a skeptical police sergeant.

It was made for executive producer Tony Tenser's Tigon British Film Productions, who tried to compete with what rivals Amicus and Hammer were up to at the same time with such films as THE SORCERERS (1967) starring Karloff, Witchfinder General (1968) starring Vincent Price, THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR (1970), Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) with Linda Hayden, DOOMWATCH (1972) and THE CREEPING FLESH (1973) with Cushing and Lee.

★★