MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND (1968) ** ½
You’ve probably seen zombie movies by George Romero, but if you think you’ve seen it all, you should check out this zombie flick by the OTHER Romero, Eddie. He and his producing partner/leading man; former child star John Ashley made a bundle in the 60’s and 70’s making cheap horror movies in the
Right before the movie begins, there’s a great gimmick where the audience has to take “The Oath of the Green Blood” (lucky theater patrons were actually handed vials of green blood they had to drink before the movie began), then almost immediately, we see a slimy green zombie chasing a naked woman through the jungle. So far so great.
A group people, including Ashley, his wife (Angelique Pettyjohn) and a James Dean wannabe go to “
In between the great scenes of the snot faced creature killing naked women there is a
When Ashley fools around on his ham radio, the creature gets a headache THIS BIG and trashes hotel rooms like a rock star and kills even more necking natives. In the end, Ashley burns the doctor’s lab to the ground and he and his monster burn together.
Whenever the mossy faced monster is on a rampage, Mad Doctor of Blood Island is damn good times, but the portions of the movie that involves people actually talking to each other seems like an over long Pilipino episode of
Romero gets a Pavlovian response out of his audience every time the monster shows up, because whenever it is about to attack, the camera gets real shaky and zoomy. The shaky cam stuff is kinda cool at first, but Romero goes a little overboard with it sometimes and it’s enough to make you dizzy.
The green faced zombie himself is pretty cool looking and resembles the love child of Jason Voorhees and Swamp Thing. For a movie called Mad Doctor of Blood Island, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of blood to be found, but as in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, there is plenty of gore. Only in this flick it’s in full color. We see guts being ripped out, arms, legs and hands torn from their sockets, heads are dislodged from their neck stumps, and we see lots of small and large intestines go splat of the floor.
The plot is pretty predictable (anyone with half a brain could tell you ten minutes into the movie the identity of the zombie), but the film features at least one novel plot twist as the zombie is actually controlled by his jilted ex lover instead of the mad doctor.
Ashley does what he can with his limited charisma, and Remy looks like a beatnik version of Dr. Strangelove. Unfortunately the densely chested Pettyjohn disappears for a good chunk of the movie, which is a shame because she’s easily the best actress in the whole film. And I’m not just saying that because she bares her mountainous mammary glands. (Okay, that’s not entirely true.)
AKA: Blood Doctor. AKA: Grave Desires. AKA: Tomb of the Living Dead.