by Victoria Silverwolf
Hands Across the Pacific
For about a decade, a company called Hemisphere Pictures has released movies that are Filipino/American co-productions. Filmed on location in the Philippines, these are often war stories or adventure films. In order to get folks like me into theaters, they also make horror movies.
A quartet of these scare flicks takes place on a fictional isle known as Blood Island. As we'll see, the first one in the series is quite a bit different from the others. Think of it as a prelude to a fugue in three voices.
Since the Journey has expanded its scope to include horror films, especially since they often overlap with the Fantasy milieu, I thought you'd enjoy learning about the wonders that Hemisphere has to offer. Let's take a look.
Paging Doctor Moreau: Terror is a Man
Readers of H. G. Wells may experience a feeling of déjà vu when they watch this 1959 black-and-white chiller. Others may be reminded of the horror classics of the 1930's and 1940's from Universal Studios.
We begin with a warning from the film makers. A similar gimmick was used in the 1966 shocker Chamber of Horrors. Back then it was called the Horror Horn and the Fear Flasher.
A helpful map shows us an isle called Isla de Sangre. I'm sure you can translate that from Spanish. A guy in a lifeboat washes up on this ominously named bit of land. He's the only survivor of an explosion that sank a freight ship.
Our hero enjoys a well-deserved nap.
He's rescued by the locals and taken to the local physician, played by Francis Lederer. I know him best for portraying a modern-day vampire in 1958's The Return of Dracula.
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Moreau — I mean Girard!"
Also in residence is the doctor's estranged wife, who provides some romance for our hero, and his hulking assistant, who gets to be the main bad guy. More important is the presence of a humanoid figure wrapped up in bandages.
"Is this covered by Medicare?"
We soon find out that this creature has escaped and killed some people. Almost all the locals head for another island, showing a lot more intelligence than most folks in monster movies. A young woman and a boy stay behind as the doctor's servants. More guts than brains, I suppose.
The doctor has been using surgery and other procedures in an attempt to transform a panther into a man. (One very brief scene of real surgery inserted into the film is when the warning bell is heard.) Yes, it's an uncredited variation on the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896).
Not as memorable as Island of Lost Souls, the 1932 adaptation of the novel, this is still a pretty good movie. We don't have Charles Laughton as Moreau, or Bela Lugosi as the Sayer of the Law, or Kathleen Burke as the sexy Panther Woman, but Francis Lederer is fine in the role of a surprisingly sympathetic Mad Scientist. He's not actually insane, really, even though his project is crazy enough.
The Panther Man is an intriguing combination of the Frankenstein Monster, an innocent creature rising from the surgical table; the Mummy, always shown wrapped up in bandages; and the Wolfman, with his hairy face and fangs. We don't see very much of him, which is a good thing. As producer Val Lewton taught us in Cat People and other moody horror films, what we imagine is far more frightening that what we see.
Four stars.
Wedding Bell Blues: Brides of Blood
We had to wait seven years before paying another visit to Blood Island. A lot of things changed between 1959 and 1966. Instead of moody black-and-white, we've got eyepopping color. Relaxing motion picture standards allow us to have some gore and a bit of female nudity.
Three people show up on the island. We've got a scientist, his much younger wife, and a guy from the Peace Corps. The last serves as our hero.
Peace Corps guy and scientist enjoy a pre-horror meal.
As soon as they arrive, they witness the funeral of two young women whose bodies were horribly mutilated. Things get weirder when they find mutated plants and animals. It seems that there was some atomic bomb testing not too far from the island. As you know, radiation does strange things in horror movies.
A moth that bites people, for example. It has also mutated in a way that makes it look like a cheap special effect.
There are trees with flexible limbs that grab people, for example. The really strange thing is that these mutations go back to normal in the daytime. That's motion picture science for you, folks.
The scientist's wife is about to be grabbed by a tree, demonstrating the importance of proper pruning.
It soon becomes clear that the locals are sacrificing young women to a monster that shows up at night. Meanwhile, we meet a fellow who has lived on the island since the Spanish Civil War, although he seems very young. Could he have something to do with what's going on? Let's see; the mutants go back to normal in the daytime . . .
If you answered yes to the above question, go to the head of the screenwriting cliché class.
There's some time wasted with the man-hungry wife's chasing after everything in trousers, and the film ends with an extended dance sequence that is the living definition of anticlimax. Other than that, this is pretty basic monster on the rampage stuff. Unfortunately, the monster is really goofy-looking.
"I'm going to kill you! Why are you laughing?"
Not a good film. Two stars.
Eat Your Vegetables: Mad Doctor of Blood Island
Last year we got the third film in the series. If you saw this when it first came out, you were given a little packet of green liquid to drink.
The movie begins with scenes of young couples making out. I thought that was supposed to happen in the audience, particularly at drive-ins, not on the screen. We get a lengthy introduction as a bunch of words crawl up the screen.
"Can I run this by my lawyer first?"
That highfalutin language boils down to Drink this stuff and you can watch the movie without turning into a monster. I guess it worked.
Actor John Ashley (Peace Corps guy) returns, but as a different character. This time he's a pathologist studying a weird disease on Blood Island. Along for the ride is Angelique Pettyjohn, known to Galactic Journeyers for her role in the Star Trek episode The Gamesters of Triskelion. There's some subplot about going to the island to find her alcoholic father, but that has little to do with the plot. Her role here is pretty much as the Girl.
"How long until we fall in love?" "Well, we've only got an hour and a half . . ."
There's another guy with them, looking for his mother. Her husband died on Blood Island — or did he? Also present on the island is our title Mad Doctor.
Sporting a groovy pair of shades.
The Mad Doctor doesn't seem too worried about the fact that someone, or something, is killing islanders. Nor is he very concerned about the bizarre disease that turns people green.
"Take two weedkillers and call me in the morning."
Our heroes discover that the tomb of the guy who supposedly died a while ago is empty. The Mad Doctor cured him of a fatal disease by injecting him with chlorophyll from mutated plants (maybe the kind we saw in the previous film.) The green people are the result of similar experiments. Now the guy is an insane, homicidal monster.
The Incredible Chlorophyll Man.
The monster makeup is far from stellar, but a little better than the stuff that showed up in the prior movie. The film loses a lot of points for the way it has the camera zoom in and out rapidly every time the monster shows up. This is really annoying. If the green liquid didn't make you sick, the throbbing camerawork will do the trick.
Two stars.
Don't Lose Your Head: Beast of Blood
This year we got the fourth film in the series. Surprisingly, it's a direct sequel to the previous one. In fact, you could easily edit the two together and get one long movie.
The opening titles feature a pretty cool drawing of the monster. A sign of improvement?
"Do I look better in purple or green?"
The previous movie ended with our hero on a boat heading away from Blood Island. This one starts on the same boat, just about to pull away. The monster is aboard, and slaughters everybody except our hero with an axe. That's a heck of an opening, and a sign that there's going to be plenty of action.
Some time later, our hero returns, out to destroy the monster. Following him is a reporter interested in his story. She's played by Celeste Yarnell. Another Star Trek connection! She played Yeoman Martha Landon in the episode The Apple.
"Don't get any funny ideas, mister. I was a security officer aboard the Enterprise."
We soon find out that the Mad Doctor, thought to be killed when his laboratory burnt down in the previous film, is still around and up to no good. In particular, he kidnaps the reporter in order to lure the hero into his clutches.
"I look different because of the damage I suffered in the fire. Also, I'm being played by another actor."
The movie turns into a war story, as the hero and allies among the islanders attack the Mad Doctor and his minions. There's a lot of gunfire and explosions. Meanwhile, the Mad Doctor has decapitated the monster, keeping its head alive in a jar and the rest of its body strapped down on a surgical table.
"Can you get me a date with that lady from The Brain That Wouldn't Die?"
This would seem to limit the ability of the monster to do anything. Well, you can't keep a good man down, and the same applies to a bad creature. Through the use of telepathy of some sort, the head manages to take control of the body and use it to do its dirty work.
"If you don't stop singing I Ain't Got No Body I'm gonna get up and slap your face."
The monster makeup is a lot better, and the movie moves along briskly. Better than the last couple of films in the series, for sure.
Three stars.
A Bloody Good Time?
Not the greatest films ever made, although some of them are a lot better than others. Terror is a Man, in particular, should appeal to fans of classic horror movies. Will there be other journeys to Blood Island? Only time will tell.
This is not part of the same series, but a war film from 1958. Caveat emptor!
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
