Customer Reviews

Mad Doctor of Blood Island

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4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Any film that is a sequel that has Angelique Pettijohn replacing Beverly Hills has to be watched to be believed. There was a series of this Phillipine-shot flicks at the time and I remembered seeing a lot of them on old WVIA-44 in Scranton with some old guy hosting ala Zacherley. These were spooky and moody with some great locales and some gory effects but, really, they had marginal acting and some terrible scripts. They were kitchsy and cool when we were kids and if you look at the Blood Island films from the eye in the corner of you memory, you'll really enjoy them. I think Mad Doctor was the best of the bunch.

Of the handful of drive-in features that took place on `Blood Island' back in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968) was (and is) the most popular. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but I think it had something to do with a couple of factors, the first being there seemed to be more blood and guts in this one than the others and second being Ms. Angelique Pettyjohn's willingness to doff her clothes, if only for a brief, few moments...interestingly enough her character survives this film, but her predecessor, Beverly Hills aka Beverly Powers, who appeared in the earlier made Brides of Blood (1968), showing considerably less skin, did not make out as well by the end of her feature. Coincidence? Perhaps, but one must also consider the fact Ms. Power's character was a condescending, patronizing, overbearing, emasculating b*tch on wheels...produced and directed by Eddie Romero (Brides of Blood, Beast of the Yellow Night, Beast of Blood), the film stars John Ashley (High School Caesar, Beach Blanket Bingo, Beast of Blood) and Angelique Pettyjohn ("Get Smart", Clambake), probably most famous for her role as the busty alien Shahna who falls for Captain Kirk (big surprise), from the original Star Trek episode `The Gamesters of Triskelion'.

After a bit where a nekkid native girl meets her demise at the hands (or claws) of some mysterious humanoid beast in the jungle, we meet three individuals traveling by boat towards...wait for it...Blood Island! You know, it seems to me with a name like that you're only asking for trouble...anyway, there's Dr. Bill Foster (Ashley), a pathologist, a pretty blonde named Sheila Willard (Pettyjohn), and some schlep named Carlos. I haven't the foggiest idea why Bill is making the trip (and I saw the movie), but Sheila is looking for her father, whom she lost contact with after he came to the island and Carlos is returning home in hopes to whisking his mother away from the dreadful place. Upon arriving Sheila finds her father (turns out he's just an alkie-bum), Bill does whatever Bill does, and Carlos visits his mother, who happens to have a few house guests including Dr. Lorca and his bald-headed, mute, machete-wielding manservant Razak (seems Lorca administered to Carlos' sickly father before he passed some years ago and is now on permanent house call mode). After Carlos gets propositioned on by the house concubine named Marla, a bunch of stuff happens, including various natives killed and disemboweled by a fungus man lurking in the jungle, whom the natives believe is an evil spirit punishing them for their transgressions (stoopid natives). Turns out the grassy hued homicidal beast is only a product of that no-goodnik Dr. Lorca, who has been experimenting with the introduction of chlorophyll, of all things, into the human body (what a nut). Carlos and Marla shag (she used to do his father), some more natives get eviscerated (talk about being expendable), fungus men come out of the woodwork, revelations are made, Bill and Sheila shag (the doctor is in), and eventually everything comes to a bloody head, both literally and figuratively...

This movie suffered from a number of problems, the main being the lack of a strong and easily understandable story, but I did learn a few things including the following...

1. Despite having an ominous name and a forboding reputation, visitors still seem to flock to Blood Island in droves.
2. If you don't have expensive lighting equipment to film during the night, that's all right, just slap a dark lens on the camera, throw in some cricket sound effects, and tell the performers it's night when it's so obviously daytime (my, the moon shines with a gleaming, almost blinding, brilliance).
3. Fungus men are extremely sensitive to electromagnetic emissions from radio equipment.
4. Angelique Pettyjohn has a fantastic rack.
5. Natives, in general, are incredibly dense.
6. Pathologists are unusually adept at hand-to-hand combat techniques.
7. Apparently a son is entitled to his father's concubine after the father passes (delightful).
8. Dr. Lorca seems have a flare for fashion, much like the late, great Liberace.
9. Zooming the camera in and out quickly does not intensify the tension of a particular scene as much as it makes the viewer queasy.
10. The odd, musical native dance number can really help eat up some running time.

This film is an excellent example of some of the sleazy, low budget jungle/horror/sci-fi exploitation features to come out of the burgeoning Philippine film industry in the late 1960s/early 1970s, as American producers discovered they could shoot a feature in the Philippines for a fraction of the cost to shoot it in the states. Ashley, alumni of various JD (Juvenile Delinquent) and beach party films of the 1960s, was one of the first to recognize the market, opening the door for a number of others. The story here is as weak as watered down water as various elements don't jibe or are never made fully clear, but if you're in the mood for some squalid, tacky, sordid fun, this should be right up your alley. There was one aspect of this film I found particularly funny (and annoying) and that was whenever the main, death dealing creature made the scene, the camera would zoom in and out rapidly, in an effort (I suspect) to heighten the tension...it didn't work, but it did succeed in making me nauseous. The performances are uniformly lousy, but that's no surprise given the insipid, melodramatic script. Characters would come and go (the character of Sheila disappeared for a good twenty minutes before showing up again), and there'd be little rhyme or reason for their motives or actions (I still have no clear idea why Ashley's character made the trip). Despite all of this, I still had fun because I knew specifically what I was getting myself into...there are a few gory bits (victims covered in animal entrails to simulate evisceration), and some nekkid bits, along with an explosive finale and a suitably goofy open ended ending.

The restored picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1) format, on this Image Entertainment release looks very good. It does show signs of aging (some lines, white specking, etc.), but compared to some of the murky VHS copies I've seen, this is about as good as you'll probably get (distributor Sam Sherman supplied the print, which he supposedly got way back when Hemispheres, the company that originally produced the feature, went belly up). The Dolby Digital mono audio comes through very well. As far as extras included, there's a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an original Mad Doctor of Blood Island `green blood' prologue bit, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a still gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, a Mad Doctor of Blood Island essay by Christopher William Koenig, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Brides of Blood (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), Brain of Blood (1972), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), and Raiders of the Living Dead (1986).

Cookieman108

By the way, if you're interesting in getting this DVD release, I'd suggest trying to find the four DVD set titled The Blood Island Vacation, released by Image Entertainment, which includes the following...Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), and Brain of Blood (1972). It appears significantly less expensive than buying the titles separately.

Hey! Don't knock the camera Zoom-Zooming in and out. The effect was not far different but way ahead of the "Blair Witch" shaky camera technique. Haven't seen a re-issue yet, but this was always one of my favorite late night creature features.

"Mad Doctor of Blood Island" is perhaps the weirdest of the Blood Island series of cheap 1960s horror films from the Philippines. Regular Blood Island hero John Ashley is back as Doctor Bill Foster, and this time uninhibited Angelique Pettyjohn co-stars as Sheila Willard, who is looking for her father. You might think that the moniker "Blood Island" would frighten visitors away, but you'd be wrong. (Leech Lake is popular in Minnesota, too, so I guess there's just no accounting for taste.) Ronald Remy appears here as Doctor Lorca the lunatic scientist, and does a better job with his role than the entire remainder of the cast does with theirs combined. Much like the remainder of the films in the series, this film features huge swaths of padding, mostly of the "walking through the jungle" type, but also of the "long, preachy scenes of expository backstory" variety, with some "senseless dancing" and "random knife attacks" thrown in for good measure.

The film opens with the hilarious "green blood" prologue that is the single element the movie is most famous for. (In the commentary Sam Sherman claimed correctly "It was a gimmick picture from the word go.") The prologue is a ponderous invitation to drink green blood to protect the audience from the horror they were about to witness. The film has a second gimmick besides the green blood: snakes. The snake footage is not especially terrifying, but it is plentiful. The true hilarity starts when the monstrous creature is revealed to be a green guy with a terrible complexion. Every time he attacks the camera zooms quickly in and out in a ludicrous special effect that not only didn't work, but is almost enough to induce a seizure. Another thing amusing about the creature is the inability of victims to escape: you would have to be awfully slow not to be able to outrun a plodding ponderous creature that uses a walking stick to aid its locomotion (of course this is common to many other horror movies, too.) Lots of the actors and locations look familiar to people knowledgeable about the genre, and the only truly distinguishing thing about the plot is that the science that went awry involved experiments with chlorophyll in the blood in the treatment of leukemia, hence the verdant hue of the experimentee.

The film is slow and really drags at times, but the action picks up in the last ten minutes when a fight breaks out in Dr. Lorca's cave laboratory. For whatever implausible reason, the climactic fight concludes with the cave catching fire (!), exploding (!!), and romance flourishing in the much-maligned paradise of Blood Island. The film is interesting though not especially distinguished if you happen to like the genre, and Ronald Remy turns in a good performance while the rest of the acting is minimally satisfactory. The DVD features a couple of extras including trailers and an interview with director Eddie Romero which is fairly amateurish and has poor sound quality. There is also a commentary track with Sam Sherman who was involved with Hemispheres, the original production company. His commentary is a mixed bag. Some is interesting, but much is repetitive and comes across as a bit self-aggrandizing, although he does share a fascinating tidbit about Ray Milland's hairpiece. The commentary only lasts about half the length of the movie, and is worth listening to once, as it does provide a lot of good background information on the production of the Blood Island series of films and his views on the actors involved.

"Mad Doctor of Blood Island" is necessary viewing for fans of early Filipino horror cinema or B-movie aficionados; unless you fall into one of those two categories it is probably too boring and disjointed to merit a look.

How many monsters can one small island have?? Apparently Blood Island will never be in peace as long as John Ashley is hanging around. This time Ashley returns to Blood Island, but he's no longer Jim, he's Bill. Bill's a pathologist who's motivations for coming to the island are never explained. Angelique Pettyjohn is also along for the ride. Her character is rather pointless to the story, but at least we know why she's going to the island-she's looking for her long lost dad. Former islander, Carlos, is also coming along coz he wants to take his mother away from the island. Once on the island, the trio find everybody rather secretive, especially the island's doctor, Dr. Lorca, who looks less like a physician and more like a Filipino rock star. Soon folks are being torn to shreds by a monster lurking in the jungle. By God, who is he? Does the doctor have something to do with it? It certainly won't take you long to figure it all out. Seems that the monster is the way he is because of a huge dose of chlorophyll in his blood that was used to try to cure his leukemia. It's never stated outright, but we can assume the chlorophyll came from the same radioactive trees from the previous film, Brides of Blood, considering we spot one of the moving trees in the doctor's lab. Will Ashley luck out a second time and make it off of Blood Island alive? This movie has all the stuff that made the previous film so much fun, including the "mating dance". It has pretty much the exact same look about it, almost as though it were shot at the same time as "Brides". It's not a sequel, but it naturally has the same setting and a few very minor references to certain plot points of the previous film. The monster looks like one of the clay headed zombies from the Italian zombie flicks with bits of green fuzz stuck to it. The nudity and the gore are increased just a tad. A rather silly addition to this movie is the need to zoom in and out rapidly during the scenes involving the monster. It's annoying and funny at the same time. It's pretty much the same effect used in the Red Hot Chili Peppers video, "Give It Away". Recommended solely to those that like this kind of thing, coz it's rather hard to justify it to anybody else.

"Mad Doctor of Blood Island" is an enthusiastic but not very good film about bloodthirsty goings on in the Philippines involving a green zombie-like creature that pops up periodically to rip people to shreds. Some visiting westerners (the stars of the film, naturally) get involved in the mayhem as together with the native islanders they try to uncover the truth behind the gory goings on.

If this film was better made it could have become a cult classic. Well, actually it is already a cult classic, but I think the status is undeserved. The main thing it has working against it is the truly dire production values. The lighting, editing, exposure and acting are all over the place, and together with some huge swings in colour balance (some of which I believe are intentional, but it doesn't help!), this seriously hampers any viewing pleasure. As does the very irritating crazy zoom effect which accompanies every scene involving the green zombie monster attacks...the camera bounces in and out rapidly over and over again, which was probably classified as being "Filmed in Horror-Vision" or something, although I'm not fooled, I know it was only done to distract audiences from the very limited special effects on screen, in particular the main monster make-up which consists of very obvious pull-on monster mask and monster gloves! The horrific highlights can be quite entertaining as the film never shies away from piling on the gore, and for 1968 it's quite surprising to see pulled out intestines and severed limbs flying about, even some pretty effective stabbings and flesh rippings get a look in, although the ones that could have looked quite good are again finished off by the ever present zooming in-and-out madness.

But when the monster is not attacking...oh dear. Amateur actors and a banal script combine together to produce a thoroughly boring movie. A couple of dreary "love-scenes" do nothing to pep up the proceedings, and the heroine is played by someone called Angelique Pettyjohn who has no discernible star quality at all.

So to close, I would not recommend this to horror lovers, even those of a very generous nature. If you have seen nothing but pictures or the few gory highlights, you might be forgiven for thinking this is quite lurid stuff, but in the context of the rest of the movie even the explicit gore might not keep you engaged - or awake

John Ashley returns (as a pathologist!) in this gooshy, bubbly, cheezelog sequel to BRIDES OF BLOOD! This time, Ashley is joined by the lovely Angelique Pettyjohn as a woman in search of her father. Meanwhile, a moss-covered zombie is mutilating the island folk! Unlike BRIDES, MAD DOCTOR has actual gore sequences, including bloody limbs and intestines! The murdering monster isn't bad at all, especially for a low-low budget drive-in classic. Of course, as the gore rises, so does the nudity! Yes, there are some beautiful island babes in this one! Eddie Romero has once again fashioned a very enjoyable hunk of exploitation horror cinema! See the entire trilogy...