Odd little movie, one of several in the cheapjack voodoo cycle of the late fifties. Boris Karloff is on hand as a professional debunker, Murvyn Vye is the Barton MacLane guy, all bluster and macho, Elisha Cook, Jr. is furtive and nervous. The jungle sets are unbelievable even by B movie standards; the plot is almost impossible to follow, as it moves from the semi-serious, early on, to the surreal, as the story progresses; and the production values are suggestive of a late entry in the Bomba series. Yet it has its charms, and I wouldn't call it unwatchable, just dumb. Everyone in the movie seems to be an inhabitant of his own special mental world, regardless of what is in fact going on in the story, and indeed the movie is a bit of a mix and match job, with voodoo set in the Pacific, rather than the Caribbean, killer plants, sinister natives, who yet have a compassionate streak, and an air of magnanimous confusion that can draw in the most critical viewer if he's in the right mood, and too lazy to change the channel.
Review of Voodoo Island
