Curse of the Voodoo (1965)

Curse of the Voodoo is an obscure 1965 British horror film that turns out to be not at all what you might expect. There is certainly voodoo here but it’s more a psychological thriller than a horror film.

Mike Stacey (Bryant Haliday) is a big game hunter in Africa. He is employed by safari operator Major Lomas (Dennis Price). His troubles begin when he shoots a lion. In the process of doing so he gets mauled. Not severely, but it’s still upsetting. 

He shoots the lion within the territory of a tribe, the Simbazi, who regard lions as gods. They believe that anyone who kills a lion will pay a terrible price. They will make sure of that.

You might expect the tribesmen to come after Mike to kill him but what actually happens is a lot more interesting. He returns to London where he is haunted by dreams, and he sees African tribesmen stalking him. They appear to be merely visions of a mind that is becoming disturbed but there’s quite a bit of ambiguity in this movie. The lines between sanity and madness and between reality and illusion do become somewhat blurred.

There is definitely voodoo in this movie, although since we’re dealing with Africa it’s probably obeah rather than voodoo (but having voodoo in the title was obviously a much sounder commercial move).

Mike already had a few problems. Drinking too much, plus marital problems. His wife Janet has left him. He wants her back.

Mike’s wound is healing very slowly. His doctor is worried. Naturally he assumes that the signs of mental instability Mike is displaying are caused by a combination of an infected wound and too much alcohol. He’s a London doctor so he certainly doesn’t consider voodoo when making a diagnosis.

Mike’s dreams and visions (if they are just dreams and visions) become more and more vivid. He sees a face peering around his doorway and opens fire with his revolver but there was nobody there. Fortunately no-one was hurt and the police are not too worried.

Mike is quite an interesting character. He’s not an overly loveable guy but he’s not really unsympathetic. He’s a fairly decent man and he really does love his wife. He has tried to be a good husband. Maybe he’s not the husband she wanted and needed but he has done his best.

Bryant Haliday’s performance is a bit detached but that works in his favour since he is playing a man who is haunted but unwilling to reveal his emotions openly. I ended up being quite impressed by his performance.

Lisa Daniely as his wife Janet is pretty good. And Dennis Price is always watchable.

Look out for Dennis Alaba Peters who went on to play Sir Curtis Seretse in the wonderful ITC TV series Department S.

One could see this as a movie about the clash between the world of magic and the world of reason, between two radically different worldviews.

This movie is an example of the need to approach movies with an open mind. It would be a mistake to approach this film assuming it’s going to be a cheap shoddy Z-grade movie. If you do have an open mind you may find yourself being drawn into what really is a quite nicely executed slightly offbeat movie. And it does have that fascinating ambiguity that it never makes the mistake of trying to resolve too neatly.

It’s all very low-budget of course, but I don’t think that’s a problem here.

And it does have a screenplay by Brian Clemens, and quite a neatly done screenplay too.

Lindsay Shonteff directed. He was a minor director but made a few interesting movies including The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967) and Permissive (1970), the bleakest most pessimistic most depressing sexploitation movie ever made (although it is intriguing). Having watched Curse of the Voodoo ii’m inclined to think I’ve been guilty of underestimating Shonteff. This is a movie made by a director who knows what he’s trying to achieve and knows how to achieve it. He pulls off some quite effective visual set-pieces which were clearly done with very little money. They rely purely on the skill of the director. This guy might not be a great director but he’s certainly an interesting one.

Curse of the Voodoo does not deserve to languish in obscurity. It’s a nice little movie that teases us with the possibility that it’s either supernatural horror or psychological horror. Highly recommended.

The Screenbound all-region DVD offers a perfectly adequate transfer.

Crypt of Dark Secrets (1976)

Crypt of Dark Secrets is a zero-budget horror/hicksploitation/swampsploitation/sexploitation flick made in Louisiana. Nobody seems to have a good word to say for this movie but I’m willing to mount at least a partial defence of this one.

There’s an island in a remote stretch of the bayou and there’s a house there. No-one has been able to live in the house because it’s reputed to be haunted.

The middle-aged local sheriff explains to his younger partner that the haunting may be connected to the mysterious legend of Damballah. Damballah is a kind of witch or voodoo goddess who lives in the swamp and has lived there for centuries. It’s a very obscure legend but the cop is inclined to give it some credence. He’s seen plenty of weird things in that swamp.

That remote haunted house in the swamp now has a new tenant, Ted Watkins. Ted is a retired Army Ranger and Vietnam vet and after Vietnam nothing scares him. He has a stack of money which he keeps in the bread tin in his kitchen. He’s confident that only a complete idiot would dare to rob such a renowned tough guy.

As it happens there are two idiots who are indeed going to try to rob him. These guys are as dumb as rocks. The wife of one of them has at least enough sense to figure out that it would be advisable to leave no witnesses. They’ll have to kill Ted Watkins.

Killing Ted proves to be surprisingly easy, but now the thieves’ problems really begin.

Ted is dead but he doesn’t stay dead long. He is found by a strange girl he has often seen wandering in the swamp. There’s nobody living within ten miles of his cabin so there can’t be any such girl but he’s seen her and he knows she exists.

The girl is of course Damballah!

Damballah (played by Maureen Ridley) has all kinds of witchy powers. She can transform herself into a snake. Bringing dead Vietnam vets back to life is child’s play for her.

Damballah is fond of Ted. She thinks he could be the Chosen One, the man destined for her. She’s naturally pretty annoyed that someone killed him, even temporarily. Voodoo witch queens tend to look for revenge when that happens.

The problem with these kinds of off-the-wall cult movies is that people insist on judging them by the standards of regular movies. You can’t do that. By any objective standards, by any of the criteria that apply to mainstream movies, this is a terrible movie. I’ve never liked the idea of describing a movie as so bad it’s good. I think that misses the point. It’s more correct to say that cult movies are either good or bad according to different rules from mainstream movies.

The things that are bad about this movie aren’t really relevant. The acting is atrocious but you don’t watch a movie like this hoping to see an Oscar-worthy acting performance. The actors in a cult movie don’t have to be good in a conventional way, they have to deliver the goods in other ways. Take Maureen Ridley as Damballah in this movie. She’s stiff and she delivers her lines in an incredibly stilted way. But she’s supposed to be some weirdass supernatural voodoo queen. They don’t speak the way regular girls do. They speak in a weird portentous way. Maureen Ridley captures the right touch of weirdness. She looks exotic, she has a great body and she knows how to give off spooky sexy vibes. Her performance is bad by ordinary standards but perfect for this movie.

The interior scenes are dull and static but once the camera gets out into the bayou everything changes. The location shooting is excellent. And director Jack Weis does manage to achieve some genuine touches of foreboding.

The special effects are ultra-cheap. Damballah can transform herself into a snake. In 1976 even a big-budget major-studio movie probably could not have pulled off that kind of transformation scene. So all Weis does is to show us the snake, then there’s a cloud of mist, and then Damballah is standing there. It’s the oldest cheapest trick in the book for dealing with such scenes but if it’s done right it works and it doesn’t cost money.

The movie’s biggest selling point is undoubtedly Damballah’s naked dancing scenes and they work. They’re strange and sexy and you can’t accuse Weis of indulging in gratuitous nudity. No self-respecting supernatural voodoo queen would even think of dancing in the woods with her clothes on.

The basic premise is quite solid. There’s the supernatural spooky stuff, there’s the crime angle and there’s hidden pirate treasure. The right ingredients for a silly sexy horror flick.

Something Weird found a pretty decent print of this movie. They paired it with The Naked Witch (a movie which is a failure but an interesting failure) and added lots of extras. Most are strip-tease shorts. The Afro-Cuban Genii strip in particular is pretty terrific. That’s one energetic girl. I guess she takes her vitamins every morning. There’s also a zonked-out psychedelic bad acid trip short which is wall-to-wall female frontal nudity but it’s certainly trippy.

Crypt of Dark Secrets isn’t a lost classic but if you’re in the right mood it’s kinda fun. It helps if you have a taste for swampsploitation movies. Just make sure to have plenty of beer and popcorn. Recommended.

Yambaó - Cry of the Bewitched (1957)

Yambaó (also known as Cry of the Bewitched) is a 1957 Cuban/Mexican voodoo horror musical, which has to be one of the rarest of all cult movie sub-genres!

Jorge (Ramón Gay) and his wife Béatriz (Rosa Elena Durgel) live on a sugar plantation in Cuba. They’re slave owners but Jorge is an enlightened master and life is generally peaceful. Or at least it was peaceful, until Yambaó came back. Yambaó (Ninón Sevilla) is the grand-daughter of the witch Caridad. Caridad had been killed (or was presumed to have been killed) by Jorge’s overseer Damián a few years earlier. Yambaó disappeared at that time but now she has returned and things are going to get very complicated.

Yambaó has always been in love with Jorge and although she realises there isn’t much hope for such a love it hasn’t stopped her and hasn’t diminished her passions in any way. Jorge also certainly has more than a passing interest in Yambaó. Damián’s son Lázaro is also in love with Yambaó. Lázaro, like his father Damián, is a slave so he’s a much more realistic target for her affections. But she still loves Jorge.

It’s worth pointing out that Yambaó is not a slave. She was born a slave but the old master, Jorge’s father, freed her. Which adds to the difficulties, since Jorge therefore has no control over her.

To make Jorge’s life even more complicated plague breaks out. And the plague makes no distinction between master and slave.

The superstitions that had always been simmering away beneath the surface of life on the plantation now blossom in potentially very threatening ways.

Meanwhile Yambaó plots. Perhaps she does not have her grandmother’s powers but she certainly has powers of her own, both supernatural and feminine. Whether the spells she casts on men are mainly witchcraft or mainly the result of her earthy eroticism is hard to say but either way their efficacy cannot be denied.

Jorge and Béatriz are awaiting the birth of their first child and that can only add fuel to the fires of Yambaó’s jealousy.

This movie is perhaps more melodrama than anything else (which is no problem for me since I happen to enjoy a good overheated melodrama) but there’s enough of the witchcraft angle to keep horror fans reasonably satisfied.

The musical angle should be put into perspective. This is not at all a Hollywood musical. The musical interludes all serve a purpose. Most are connected with various rituals and do a great deal to build the atmosphere of malevolence and foreboding. And most of them feature Ninón Sevilla’s dancing, and her dancing is a sight to behold. As well as being a successful actress Cuban-born Ninón Sevilla was an extremely famous dancer, known for doing her own choreography and for the extreme eroticism of her performances. And there’s plenty of that eroticism here. It’s easy to see why she was a sensation as a professional dancer.

The music itself was obviously intended to capture an Afro-Caribbean-Cuban feel and it does so pretty successfully.

Ramón Gay gives a fine performance as the tortured Jorge but the film belongs to Ninón Sevilla. She might not have been a great actress in a conventional sense but she has an extraordinary smouldering presence.

There’s no gore but there are some creepy moments. Somewhat surprisingly (this is a 1957 movie after all) there’s some brief nudity.

There’s some surprising subtlety here. Jorge is hardly a paragon of virtue but he’s no villain. Yambaó is dangerous but is she evil? Or is she herself being used by an evil force?

Yambaó was shot in Cuba and visually it’s very impressive. In fact it’s a very well made movie. The script, by Julio Albo and Julio Alejandro, is also surprisingly intelligent and provocative. Director Alfredo B. Crevenna (responsible for many of the more interesting Mexican genre films) does a fine job.

This movie is paired with Mermaids of Tiburon in the Kit Parker Films/VCI Entertainment Psychotronica Volume 3 DVD release and is also included in their Psychotronica Collectors’ Set. The transfer is acceptable if not dazzling.

Yambaó is an oddity but it’s an interesting and very entertaining oddity.

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

I had seen I Walked With a Zombie before, and even reviewed it, but that was the best part of a decade ago so I think I can be forgiven for revisiting what is after all considered to be one of the great horror classics.

This 1943 release was a product of the celebrated Val Lewton B-movie unit at RKO and was directed by Jacques Tourneur, the best of the directors who worked for Lewton.

Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) has been employed as a nurse to care for the wife of sugar planter Paul Holland (Tom Conway) on an island in the West Indies. Holland’s wife Jessica  has been in a state of near-catatonia for several years. She can walk but she cannot communicate and appears to have no mental connection with the world at all.

This partly accounts for the slightly brooding atmosphere at the plantation but there is more to it than that. There was apparently a romantic triangle involving Mrs Holland and the two brothers and shortly before she was stricken by her illness there had been a particularly unpleasant scene.

Betsy is in something of a quandary. She realises immediately that she is falling in love with Paul Holland. She is convinced that he still loves his wife and Betsy is driven by a combination of guilt and compassion to conceive the idea that perhaps Jessica Holland can somehow be restored to normality. Dr Maxwell (James Bell) has been willing to do all he can but nothing has had any effect. Betsy is informed that there are in fact better doctors who can cure Mrs Holland - voodoo doctors. We would imagine Betsy as the kind of person with little time for such notions but her zeal (or her guilt) overwhelms her judgment and she decides to give the voodoo doctors their chance. Of course she does not inform Paul Holland of her decision.

As the audience will have already gathered most of the characters have very conflicted emotions. They are not always entirely honest about their emotions and in some cases they may well be willfully deceiving themselves. Whatever the immediate outcome of Betsy’s visit to the voodoo priests might be the longer term consequences for herself, for Paul and for his brother are likely to be unpredictable.

This is certainly a horror movie that is more character-driven than most and the relationships between the characters are crucial. The motivations of the characters are also quite complex. Betsy’s guilt is not entirely unwarranted. She knew from the start that Paul was a married man and she made no attempts to discourage his interest in her, and he is a very wealthy man while she’s a more or less penniless nurse. It’s understandable she might feel that her behaviour could be interpreted as conniving. In fact it may even be conniving, perhaps without ever admitting it to herself.

Tom Conway was always somewhat overshadowed by his more famous brother George Sanders. To be honest Conway was the less talented of the brothers but he was a competent actor in the right role and he did some of his very best work in the Lewton pictures. His performance in this one can’t really be faulted. Paul Holland is a man who is repressing some very strong emotions and Conway conveys this effectively. James Ellison is quite adequate as Paul’s half-brother. Frances Dee is a satisfactory heroine, a confident self-assured woman who discovers she doesn’t know quite as much about life as she thought she did.

This movie breaks most of the rules for horror films. There’s very little overt horror, and until fairly close to the end there’s none at all. Tourneur knows what he’s doing however. The sense of unease and subtle menace builds gradually but inexorably. 

As a cinematographer J. Roy Hunt does not have the glittering reputation of Nicholas Musuraca for photographed Cat People for Tourneur but based on his work on this film perhaps he should. There are shadows. Lots of shadows! In fact some of the best use of shadows you’ll ever see. This is a movie that is heavily reliant on atmosphere and the visuals serve the purpose admirably. Since it’s so similar in visual style to other Tourneur movies one can’t help assuming that Tourneur’s influence was very much the dominant one although Hunt deserves credit for giving Tourneur the look he was after.

The sets are quite impressive also, especially by B-movie standards. The island setting is surprisingly convincing.

This movie was inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and if made today would doubtless be titled Jane Eyre with Zombies. Given that Jane Eyre is one of the masterpieces of gothic fiction the idea of turning it into a horror movie actually is not outrageous at all. The movie preserves at least a fair proportion of the spirit of Brontë’s novel.

One thing I found interesting was the way voodoo was portrayed. It wasn’t demonised in the way you’d expect in a 1943 movie, not was it depicted as being merely ridiculous. 

The Warner Home Video DVD release pairs I Walked With a Zombie with another Lewton movie, The Body Snatcher. I Walked With a Zombie gets a good transfer plus a very worthwhile audio commentary from Kim Newman and Steve Jones.

There are those who say this is the best of all the Lewton RKO films, but personally I think this one, Cat People and The Seventh Victim are all so good I wouldn’t like to even try to pick a favourite.  And they have aged very well indeed. This is magnificent subtle horror. Very highly recommended.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

The Plague of the Zombies was, I believe I am correct in stating, Hammer’s only attempt at a zombie film. And a very worthy attempt it is too.

John Gilling had made some interesting movies in the film noir genre in the 50s, most notably Deadly Nightshade (1953) and The Challenge (1960), before becoming a semi-regular director for Hammer in the 60s. He made five movies for Hammer, including two back-to-back in 1966, the underrated The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. In fact they were made more or less simultaneously using the same locations and sets.

An eminent physician, Sir James Forbes (André Morell), has been called down to Cornwall by Dr Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Dr Tompson is general practitioner in a small village and he is facing a situation that has him alarmed and perplexed. Young villagers are dying in disturbing numbers and he can find no clues whatsoever as to the causes. The situation is not helped by the refusal of the superstitious villagers to allow him to conduct post-mortem examinations.

Sir James is accompanied by his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare). It’s immediately obvious that there is something very wrong in the village. On their arrival they see a funeral disrupted by a crowd of young and obviously wealthy ruffians on horseback. Sylvia’s old school friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), now married to Dr Tompson, seems ill and very uneasy. Dr Tompson is drinking more than he should. The atmosphere in the village’s pub is tense to say the least.

Sir James convinces Dr Tompson that they will be able to make no progress unless they can carry out a post-mortem on one of the victims, even if they have to rob the victim’s grave to do so. Which is what they proceed to do. The discovery of an empty coffin in the grave adds to the mystery.

It transpires that someone is practising voodoo, but to what ends? Why do they need an army of zombies?

This movie doesn’t have too many familiar Hammer faces but the cast is perfectly adequate. André Morell is superb as Forbes, Jacqueline Pearce is excellent, Diane Clare is quite competent. Brook Williams is a little dull but Dr Tompson is a rather thankless role. The biggest surprise is Michael Ripper - he isn’t playing an innkeeper! He plays the local police sergeant, and has great fun doing so.

This film has all the usual strengths of a Hammer film. The gothic atmosphere is effective, as you would expect with Arthur Grant doing the cinematography. With Bernard Robinson as production designer the movie looks splendid.

The zombie make-up effects work very well indeed.

Within a couple of years of the release of this film George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead would usher in a new era of gore-drenched zombie movies. Personally I prefer zombie movies of the earlier type, and I much prefer a movies that tie zombies in with voodoo, as this one does quite effectively. There isn’t much gore in The Plague of the Zombies but it still manages to evoke some genuine chills and a nicely creepy ambience.

Anchor Bay’s old DVD release still stands up extremely well.

The Plague of the Zombies is classic Hammer gothic horror. It looks good, it has a strong cast, a decent script and it benefits from having a director who knows what he’s doing and isn’t trying to be excessively clever. This is fine entertainment for Hammer fans. Highly recommended.

The Face of Marble (1946)

The Face of Marble is a 1946 Monogram horror flick starring John Carradine. It’s a mad scientist movie, but it’s a whole lot more than that.

John Carradine is Dr Charles Randolph, a brilliant brain surgeon whose research is veering far into uncharted territory. In other words he’s a mad scientist. Dr Randolph and his assistant Dr David Cochran (Robert Shayne) believe they are on the verge of conquering death. Needless to say their experiments involve electricity and a secret formula.

Robert Shayne would go on to play a fully-fledged mad scientist in The Neanderthal Man. In The Face of Marble he’s just the assistant, but if you’re a trainee mad scientist you really couldn’t have a better teacher than John Carradine.

One interesting twist is that it’s not Dr Randolph who wants to keep pushing on despite the evidence that his experiments are flawed, it’s his assistant who insists that they go on.

Their experiments are almost successful, but prove to have terrible consequences.

There are further plot complications - Dr Randolph’s young wife Elaine has fallen for Dr Cochran. And the Randolph family’s housekeeper Maria (Rosa Rey) is a voodoo priestess.

This one throws just about everything imaginable into the mix - there’s a mad scientist, there’s voodoo, there’s vampirism and there’s a dog who walks through walls. There’s also a nosy police inspector causing trouble about the dead body of a sailor washed ashore on the beach. It seems the sailor had been exposed to massive amounts of electricity, which is not the sort of thing you expect with a drowning victim. The romantic triangle alluded to earlier will also cause major problems, as romantic triangles usually do when they’re aided by voodoo.

It’s a Monogram movie so it’s a very low-budget affair. That doesn’t prove to be to much of a problem. Dr Randolph’s laboratory is a perfectly adequate if not spectacular mad scientist’s laboratory. The special effects are obviously very cheap but they work well enough and they certainly don’t detract from the fun.

While the story is a real mixture of elements the screenplay (by Michael Jacoby) deserves credit for managing to combine them quite effectively. The romantic triangle forms an integral part of the plot. Even the juxtaposition of science and voodoo works surprisingly well. Dr Randolph and Dr Cochran are trying to do exactly what the voodoo priestess Maria is doing - interfering with the course of nature. The fact that the movie seems to be shuttling back and forth between science fiction and supernatural horror also becomes more acceptable once you realise that that’s the whole point, that the movie is saying that science and voodoo are more or less interchangeable. You might not agree with that view but it’s a perfectly valid one for the movie to take.

John Carradine is always fun. In this sort of movie you expect his performance to be outrageously hammy but in fact he underplays his rôle slightly (or at least it’s underplayed by John Carradine standards) and adds some actual emotional depth. One of the intriguing things about this movie is that the mad scientist isn’t a good man who slowly becomes corrupted by playing God - in this case he actually becomes less crazy as he realises what the consequences are.

By the standards of 1940s Monogram horror cheapies this is a movie that tries to be a bit subtle and a bit ambitious, and surprisingly it’s at least party successful in these efforts. 

This is one of the four movies (all on a single DVD) in the Shout! Factory / Timeless Media Movies 4 You: Timeless Horror set. The print used for the transfer of The Face of Marble was clearly not in great condition but it’s quite watchable. There are occasional minor sound issues but nothing to get too worried about. Considering the ludicrously low price of this set and the fact that the other transfers are pretty good there’s not much to complain about. These are movies that are unlikely ever to get full restorations so they are probably never going to look any better than this. The set also includes The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, The Snake Woman and I Bury the Living.

Those who start with the prejudice that all Monogram pictures were junk may be inclined to dismiss The Face of Marble with a sneer. If you don’t suffer from that prejudice or if you’re prepared to put it aside then you might find yourself enjoying this movie quite a bit. It’s obviously not in the same league as the Val Lewton movies of the same era but it’s really a lot better than its reputation would suggest. Recommended.

Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)

Zombies of Mora Tau was one of producer Sam Katzman’s 1950s low-budget science fiction/horror flicks, included in Sony’s four-movie Icons of Horror Sam Katzman Collection.

Jan Peters (Autumn Russell) arrives at her great-grandmother’s house in Africa and something very strange happens on the drive there. Her great-grandmother’s chauffeur hits a man on the road and just drives on as if nothing had happened. He assures Jan that she is not to worry because it was not a man that the car hit. She remembers stories of zombies from her childhood but surely no-one believes such stories in the 1950s. It is obvious however that her great-grandmother most certainly does believe in zombies.

She discovers that a miscellaneous collection of adventurers and rough-necks are nearby, searching for a fabled treasure lost off the coast of Africa in the late 19th century. Her great-grandmother clearly knows a good deal about the story. In the past half-century half a dozen expeditions have tried to find the famous diamonds that went down with the Susan B in 1894. They are all buried in a nearby graveyard.

George Harrison (Joel Ashley) has no patience with legends of zombies. He aims to get those diamonds. Dr Jonathan Egger (Morris Ankrum) is accompanying his expedition, but for scientific reasons rather than greed. Handsome young deep-sea diver Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer) shares Harrison’s interest in the diamonds. When a member of the crew of Harrison’s ship falls victim to a zombie Jeff starts to have his doubts about the wisdom of the whole undertaking but he puts those doubts aside when Harrison offers him a bigger cut of the loot.

It soon becomes apparent that the zombies are all too real and that the chances of getting those diamonds and getting out alive are not very promising. Jan’s great-grandmother tries to persuade the greed-obsessed adventurers that the diamonds are the reason for the existence of the zombies and that only by destroying the diamonds can the zombies find eternal peace. The zombies are of course the original crewmen of the Susan B and the various men who have since tried to claim the diamond treasure from its watery resting place a hundred feet beneath the sea.

This is a distinctly low-budget affair so don’t expect elaborate special effects or zombie makeup. In spite of this the zombies still manage to be fairly frightening. They don’t look particularly horrific but they just keep coming after you and nothing can stop them.

The diving scenes, surprisingly, are very well done and pretty convincing. And pretty exciting as well.

The acting is better than you generally get in such a low-rent feature. Gregg Palmer is a likeable hero and while Autumn Russell is a little insipid at times she’s an acceptable heroine. Allison Hayes has some fun as Harrison’s hardboiled wife. Marjorie Eaton is perfect as the great-grandmother who knows all the secrets.

The most common failing of the cheap sci-fi and horror movies of the 50s is poor pacing but Zombies of Mora Tau does not share that flaw. The action movies along in a very satisfying manner and the script does not get bogged down in unnecessary romantic sub-plots. There’s nothing startlingly original in the story but it hangs together and it offers a reasonably plausible explanation for the events. Plausible, so long as one admits the existence of voodoo and zombies.

Despite the low budget this movie is generally well-crafted. This is a movie that is enjoyably schlocky without Ed Wood-style incompetence.

The 16x9 enhanced transfer looks terrific. The four movies in the set are spread over two discs with (surprisingly) a few extras as well. Sony have done a fine job with this release.

Zombies of Mora Tau is just creepy enough to be more than just a so-bad-it’s-good movie but just silly enough to be great fun. It is in other words ideal entertainment for anyone who loves science fiction or horror B-movies. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.

White Zombie (1932)

White Zombie, released in 1932, was one of the first zombie movies. And it remains one of the best.

Neil Parker (John Harron) and his fiancée Madeline (Madge Bellamy) arrive in Haiti where they are to be married. On the ship carrying them to Haiti they had met Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer). Beaumont had persuaded them to postpone their wedding until they reached Haiti. Beaumont had become besotted by Madeline and now he is determined to have her, no matter what methods he has to adopt. Beaumont asks Monsieur Legendre (Bela Lugosi) to help him. Legendre agrees, but Beaumont is not sure he is prepared to pay Legendre’s price. But eventually Beaumont decides that he will pay any price, even Legendre’s.

Neil and Madeline had already heard rumours of zombies when they first arrived at the island. Missionary Dr Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) assures Neil that the legends of zombies have some basis in reality. Neil will soon discover just how true that is, when his new bride becomes one of the walking dead.

Beaumont had assumed that he would get Madeline but he is horrified by the zombie Madeline. Legendre has meantime decided he wants Madeline for himself.

Legendre, popularly known as Murder Legendre, has his own private army of zombies. He had learnt the secret of creating zombies from a voodoo witch-doctor. Legendre’s private zombie army is composed entirely of his former enemies, a fact that appeals to Legendre enormously.

Neil gives way to drink and depression but he never entirely gives up hope of restoring Madeline to normality and to himself and he has a powerful ally in Dr Bruner who has a considerable knowledge of local superstition.

Bela Lugosi fans always point to this movie as one of his finest performances, and they are quite right to do so. It’s a good meaty role that suits him perfectly and Lugosi is superb. This is Lugosi at his most charming and at his most sinister and we have no difficulty in believing that he is a man who can exercise a hypnotic control over both the living and the dead.

The other actors are distinctly subsidiary although they’re mostly adequate. Robert Frazer is very melodramatic as Charles Beaumont, which is exactly the kind of performance this movie demands. Madge Bellamy has the right kind of mysterious gothic beauty.

Victor Halperin directed and does a fine job. His brother Edward acted as producer, the movie being made by their own production company. Victor Halperin quite rightly focuses his attention on Lugosi’s mesmeric evil and the close-up shots of Lugosi’s eyes became a major icon of 1930s horror. Halperin consistently creates an atmosphere of stifling tropical evil and his style is pleasingly visually inventive. The movie was made on leased lots at Universal which partly accounts for the high production values.

Garnet Weston wrote the screenplay based on a novel by William B. Seabrook. His screenplay captures the atmosphere of voodoo-ridden Haiti extremely well.

This movie uses matte paintings very effectively. They look artificial and this enhances the nightmare-like quality of the film. The climactic sequences at the castle by the sea are wonderfully atmospheric.

This movie has fallen into the public domain and many of the DVD editions floating about are less than impressive, including the one I saw from an outfit called Payless. While the transfer was a long way from being premium quality it was quite watchable.

This is a good movie anyway but Lugosi’s performance elevates it to the very front rank of 1930s horror movies. This movie is essential viewing for any horror fan and is very highly recommended.

Voodoo Man (1944)

Voodoo Man was one of the pictures Bela Lugosi made for Monogram after signing with the studio at the beginning of the 1940s. Lugosi had, quite reasonably, come to the conclusion that he had no future with Universal. Monogram were at least offering him starring roles. Lugosi’s Monogram pictures are often disparaged, sometimes quite justifiably, but they did include a few good movies. Voodoo Man, made in 1944, was one of the best.

This was a moderately ambitious effort for the Poverty Row studio. The cast includes a couple of reasonably big names in the horror world, John Carradine and George Zucco, as well as the headliner Lugosi. They also put at least some effort into the sets. And unlike some of Lugosi’s Monogram films this is a fully fledged horror movie.

A young scenario writer from Hollywood, Ralph Dawson (Tod Andrews), is on his way to a small town to marry his sweetheart, Betty Benton (Wanda McKay). His car runs out of gas but luckily for him he gets a lift from Stella (Louise Currie). He then discovers that Stella is going to be matron of honour at his wedding. They find the main road closed but follow a detour sign but then Stella’s car mysteriously gives out on her. Ralph sets off for a nearby house but when he returns Stella is gone. He thinks no more about it until he gets to his fiancée’s house and is informed that Stella has not shown up.

In fact Stella is just the latest in a long line of young women who have gone missing in this county. What the viewer knows but the protagonists don’t is that the girls have been kidnapped by Dr Richard Marlowe (Bela Lugosi). Dr Marlowe’s wife died twenty-two years earlier but he still has hopes of bringing her back to life, by a mixture of science and voodoo. To do this he needs to capture the will to life of a suitable girl. So far he hasn’t found the right girl but he has built up a collection of beautiful young zombies.

Nicholas (George Zucco) runs the local gas station but in fact he’s the one who sends the girls to Dr Marlowe. Nicholas also happens to be a voodoo priest and is helping Dr Marlowe in his efforts to bring his wife back to life. Dr Marlowe’s henchmen also include a creepy simple-minded pervert named Toby (John Carradine).

Stella escapes from Dr Marlowe but she’s been zombie-fied and she just stares blankly into space saying nothing. Ralph, Betty and Betty’s mother can’t figure out what is wrong with her but luckily a doctor who specialises in such cases just happens to arrive on the doorstep and he offers to do what he can for the unfortunate Stella. Of course this doctor is none other than Dr Marlowe! And not long afterwards Stella disappears again - she has been called by Nicholas’s voodoo powers.

The local police have been trying to find the missing girls without any success. Ralph is no on hand to give them a helping hand although it has to be said that any success that he has is more due to good luck than to his non-existent skills as an amateur detective.

By the standards of Monogram movies this is a surprisingly decent-looking production. The budget was minuscule but director of photography Marcel Le Picard manages to get some quite atmospheric shots. Director William “One-Shot” Beaudine was renowned for his refusal to do retakes. His ability to bring in movies on time and on budget was a major asset to a studio like Monogram. He was certainly a fast worker but he was also a competent professional and it shows. The sets look fairly good with enough mad scientist and voodoo paraphernalia to make things convincing.

Lugosi is definitely this movie’s highlight. He obviously knew this was a good part and he throws himself into it with enthusiasm. He demonstrates that when given a good meaty role that suited him he could still produce the goods. This is the kind of vaguely sympathetic mad scientist movie where the scientist is tragically misguided rather than evil, the sort of role that Boris Karloff did so well. Lugosi shows that he could play such roles extremely well if given the chance. He conveys some real emotion and his performance is quite moving at times.

George Zucco does well and he approaches his role with gusto. John Carradine goes so far over-the-top that he’s off the scale as the shambling idiot Toby who is just a bit too fond of zombie-fied young ladies. Even the lesser supporting players are quite competent.

The focus here is on entertainment. There are numerous movie in-jokes. The pacing is brisk and unlike some Monogram movies this movie is never in danger of becoming dull. And a major plus is the absence of the usual excruciating comic relief.

It has to be emphasised that (contrary to the general opinion) this is not a so-bad-it’s-good movie. It’s very much a B-movie but it’s a good B-movie with a fine cast and it works as an effective little horror flick.

This movie is only available on DVD as a Rifftrax release with one of those tediously and embarrassingly unfunny MST3K-style accompaniments. Luckily the DVD does offer the option of watching the movie without the Rifftrax accompaniment. There’s quite a lot of print damage in parts but otherwise the picture quality is reasonably good.

Voodoo Man is one of the best of Bela Lugosi’s later movies (in fact it probably  is the best). A thoroughly enjoyable horror B-movie that deserves more respect than it’s ever received. Highly recommended.

Black Moon (1934)

Black Moon belongs to one of my very favourite horror genres - the voodoo movie. Even better, this 1934 Columbia production is a pre-code voodoo horror movie. And the cast includes the first of the great scream queens, the one and only Fay Wray.

Juanita Perez Lane (Dorothy Burgess) was brought up on the island of San Christopher in the Caribbean. There is a dark secret in her past relating to this island. We know it involves voodoo, because at her flat in London she still hears the voodoo drums. And she has an obsessive desire to return to San Christopher.

Juanita is married to Stephen Lane (Jack Holt) and has an eight-year-old daughter, Nancy. For some reason Juanita wants to return to San Christopher alone. There are two thousand people on the island, only two of whom are Europeans. One of these two Europeans, the overseer, is sent to London to warn Stephen that on no account should Juanita be allowed to return to the island. The overseer is murdered before he can deliver this message.

Stephen does however manage to persuade his secretary, Gail Hamilton (Fay Wray), to accompany Juanita and Nancy.

When they get to the island they find that things are very uneasy. The drums have been beating regularly, always a bad sign. The plantation on the island is owned and managed by Juanita’s uncle Dr Perez (Arnold Korff). He fears that another native uprising may be imminent.

Gail is a sensible girl and she managed to get a message to Stephen advising him to come to San Christopher at once. He arrives on a schooner skippered by ‘Lunch’ McClaren (Clarence Muse). Lunch is a black man but he has no time for the blacks on San Christopher - he fears them, and with good reason. But Lunch is a brave man and agrees to land on the island with Stephen Lane.

Things on the island rapidly become more unsettled. The full moon is approaching (a time when blood sacrifices are made to the voodoo gods) and Dr Perez pleads with the Lanes to leave the island before then. Stephen agrees, but Lunch’s schooner is stolen. Another bad sign. And Nancy’s nurse, Anna, is murdered. Now Nancy has a native nurse and it’s obvious (to the audience at least) that this new nurse is deeply involved with voodoo.

It’s also obvious that Juanita is deeply involved with voodoo. That’s her dark secret. Her parents were murdered and she was raised by a native nurse, and raised in the voodoo cult. And she is a keen, if deeply naïve, devotee. It’s clear that her loyalties are not to her husband or to Dr Perez but to the voodoo priest.

Things go from bad to worse and soon the handful of Europeans, along with Lunch McClaren but minus Juanita, are holed up in the tower that the Perez family built long ago for such eventualities. Lunch has lost his girlfriend to voodoo - she was offered as a blood sacrifice. There are never any doubts as to where his loyalties lie - he hates voodoo with a passion. He is Stephen Lane’s only reliable ally, and the only one who had been brave enough to accompany Stephen to witness the bloody voodoo rites.

Dorothy Burgess is truly frightening as the obsessed Juanita, a woman caught between two cultures who cannot see where her devotion to voodoo will lead her. Fay Wray this time has the less crucial female role but she gives it everything she’s got and she’s excellent. And she doesn’t scream in this movie - Gail is a courageous and resourceful young woman. She also has a secret, a secret that has little bearing on the main plot but does explain her motivations.

Jack Holt isn’t the most exciting of heroes but he’s quite adequate. Arnold Korff is excellent as Dr Perez, a man who knows far more about Stephen Lane’s wife than Stephen himself knows. Clarence Muse makes the most of his role as Lunch McClaren.

Roy William Neill, as always, does a fine job as director. This movie captures the steamy and ominous atmosphere of the tropics rather wonderfully.

Columbia’s DVD presentation is barebones but it’s an excellent transfer. Both the DVD and the movie are highly recommended. It might not be quite in the same league as the classic  I Walked with a Zombie but this is still a terrific voodoo horror movie.