Mad Doctor of Blood Island

If you are a Z-grade movie fan then you'll pleased to hear that this is one gloriously bad film. You get the full works here - paper-maché monster masks, screaming maidens, wooden acting, brief flashes of nudity, cave walls that are less-than-solid and a surprising dash of 1960s gore. However the best part, or worst depending on your point of view, is the wonderfully stodgy dialogue on display, for example:

Man: "What a scare you gave me. But then you are a kind of ghost yourself aren't you". Woman: "What sensitivity".

Add to this a plot involving chlorophyll (the stuff that makes leaves green) poisoning, native rituals and you've got yourself a decent B-movie. There are some aspects that will undoubtedly annoy most people, the large number of "padded" scenes for example, but the worst has to be the bloody annoying manic lens zooming!. Otherwise the film is fun to watch and will no doubt please most fans of Romero and low-budget horror fare.

I recall seeing this film at a drive-in many years ago. While I admit to a tendency of enjoying bad movies, this one had some allure because of its exploitive bent. Yes, the script is bad, the acting is also stinky, and there is some screwball operating the camera who keeps playing with the zoom lens, but the movie attempted to expand the boundaries of shock value in its day. An island monster is running around making hamburger of his victims. A not-too-savvy young American with a Ricky-Nelson haircut is on the case. Care to guess what happens next? When I saw it as a teenager it had an impact, but it probably rates as a grade D horror flick. A product of the Philippines, I believe. Am I recommending it? Only for fans of the genre.

Shortly after the Beach Party cycle of films petered out, AIP regular John Ashley went to the Philippines to produce with Eddie Romero a handful of exploitation films, of which this is the best known. It is a little disconcerting to see the arch in his career at this point. All those beach party and hot rod flicks that John did for Mr. Arkoff were admirably quaint, yet seem like Kubrick compared to the standard production values of these films.

Reference books all mention how awful these movies are, yet for some they are so putrid that they create a strange kind of attraction. But these films are nonetheless interesting for their bewildering atmosphere: these sweaty, tinny opuses seem to be made in the spirit of 40's B-pictures with liberal amounts of cheap 60's gore. This second entry in the "Blood Island" series (following BRIDES OF BLOOD, which is even worse) concerns the Chlorophyll Monster running amok, scaring natives, and putting viewers to sleep. As dreadful as these spate of Filipino exploitation films are, during their proliferation in the 1960's and 70's, it was always interesting to see who popped up in them. This time, Ashley's co-star is the lovely Angelique Pettyjohn, whom Trekkies would remember from the "Gamesters of Triskelion" episode, and who had yet to embark on a career of Triple X features such as TITILLATION.

Romero's monster is so frightening that the height of suspense comes when the creature just stands there and stands there for the longest time when it is cornering somebody. I haven't seen this deadening rot in over 12 years, yet for some reason I am getting a craving to see it all over again. Are we that fed up with the mainstream, that we masochistically seek out films that we know are pieces of painfully inept tedium just to escape some piece of Hollywood mediocrity? Is it more important to trudge through the Grade Z movie universe to find that one moment that actually works or exhibits some whisper of technical competence, than to be de-sensitized by any standard commercial fare where production values are taken for granted? Is it just some piece of lost youth we are attempting to regain in these movie experiences no matter what the price of disappointment? I don't know, but thanks to the DVD revolution, someone is unearthing these curious pictures all over again, as it is well nigh impossible to find this stuff on VHS anymore, and the barrel scrapings of the late show are now lined with infomercials for mouthy psychics and TimeLife books. At least its sequel BEAST OF BLOOD is marginally better.

A man who loves to travel, travels to an island where a mad doctor is creating zombies.

"Brides of Blood" (1968), also starring John Ashley, had been popular in the US. American distributors approached Ashley to see if he would be interested in appearing in a follow-up movie. Ashley agreed, which led to him acting in and/or producing a series of exploitation films in the Philippines. The film, which cost $125,000, was followed by a sequel, "Beast of Blood", in 1971.

This is just the perfect kind of cheese for a low budget movie. Yes, the picture looks bad and could really benefit from a new transfer (everything is sort of blue-green tinted). But in a way, it's this imperfection that adds to its charm. A great picture might make it more obvious just how silly all the effects are.

I don't suppose any character from the original Blood Island film, "Brides of Blood" (1968), would ever have had the bad sense to step back onto that radiation-mutated pesthole again, which probably explains why, in part 2 of the trilogy, "The Mad Doctor of Blood Island" (1969), we have all-new characters, and even returning actor John Ashley plays a different person. This time, Ashley plays pathologist Bill Foster, who comes to Blood Island accompanied by Angelique Pettyjohn (beloved in 1969 by all Trekkers for her turn as the Triskelion drill thrall Shahna, and soon to be famous for appearances in porn cinema), who is looking for her lost father. So what's shaking on the island now? Howzabout a chlorophyll-mutated monster that likes to rip his victims to bits, for starters! This film has the same exotic Filipino locales as the first and the same lustfully gyrating native dancers, but ups the ante with more nudity, a slightly more interesting story, nicer scenery, and lots more blood and guts. It also unfortunately features the same egregious day-for-night photography, the same lousy dubbing and the same slapdash editing that were the hallmarks of the first picture. And yet, the film is so pulpy, the story is so much fun, Ronald Remy is so convincing as the mad Dr. Lorca, and Angelique proves to be such an effective screamer that many technical faults can be forgiven. This film has absolutely nothing to do with the first--it is a sequel in name only--but I suppose seeing these things in order is always a good idea. My beloved "Psychotronic Encyclopedia," which usually has a high tolerance for shlock cinema, deems this film "awful," but I still had fun with it. Anyway, I guarantee that you will not find a better picture dealing with Filipino chlorophyll mutation anywhere...with the possible exception of part 3 of the trilogy, "Beast of Blood" (1970). I for one am sufficiently curious to find out...