***SPOILERS***Not really getting off the ground and scaring the audience "Voodoo Island" just goes from one scene to another until it finally ends, without really explaining all the weird things in it.
With three out of four men of a survey team lost on this uncharted island in the Pacific another team is sent to find out what exactly happened to them. The only survivor of the group Mitchell,Glen Dixon, is more dead then alive with a wild look in his eyes, that he never closes, that has everyone on the set calling him "Winky".
Lead by TV personality Phillip Knight, Boris Karloff, the group lands on a nearby island to rent a boat and equipment to check out the mysterious atoll. Martin Schuyler, Elisha Cook, who owns the island is a bit taken that anyone will want anything to do with it. The group of people looking for the missing surveyors work for this big hotel magnate Howard Carlton, Owen Cunningham, who's interested in building a five star hotel there.
So far so good as far as "Voodoo Island" goes but when Knight and his team including boat captain Gunn, Rhodes Reason, get on shore the movie just seems to go nowhere. Mitchell who was brought along suddenly came to life and made a brake for it. Dropping dead, this time for real, Mitchell is found by the pier with a voodoo doll that was made to look like him. Right there and then the rescue team should have realized what their in for especially when there was also found a Mawanga Bag, some kind of Voodoo artifact, indicating that their all targeted for death if they ever reach the island.
Even though we have a number of flesh eating plants and some sinister Polynesian-looking natives who's chief, Fredrich Von Ledebur, looks strangely European there's nothing in the movie that really scares you. Even when the plants go into action attacking and killing Cliar (Jean Engstrom), one of the rescue team member, the scene is about as funny or believable as the scene with Bela Lugosi and the rubber octopus in "Bride of the Monster"!
We do have a strange love triangle, which is about the most interesting thing in the film, between the macho boat captain Gunn and photographer Sarah Adams, Beverly Tyler, and the soon to be departed Clair. Clair an out of the closet lesbian really gets to hit it on with Sarah and at the same time sticks it to Gunn, being the macho man that he thinks he is, who also wants to get into her pants. I have a feeling that the movie makers had Clair killed off so early in the film to avoid anyone watching from figuring out, this in the innocent USA of 1957, what exactly Clair was not only up to but who, a lesbian, she really was. Getting Clair out of the picture also made it possible for Gunn to finally get romantic with the, what seemed to me, stuck-up on men Sarah Adams. Sarah actually was getting real hot and heavy with Clair and was anything but defensive to Macho Man Gunns advances until Clair was finally dispatched from the scene.
The movie plods along with the team finally reaching, after being captured by the locals, this native village and getting the lowdown from the natives chief and witch doctor Friedich Von Ledebur to what's going on. Von Ledebur has been running the place for the last fifty years and wants no one from the outside world to interfere with his operation. Being sick and tired of the excesses and corruption of the civilized world Von Ledebur just wants to live in peace, with his natives, which is why he has anyone, like Mitchell and the missing survivors, who enter his kingdom either turned into zombies or eaten by his plants.
There's still the greedy and materialistic Schuyler and Finch (Marvyn Vye), who's hotel magnate Cunninghmans advance man, to be taken care of with Fnch getting by far the worst of it. Schuyler is at least put to his eternal rest by jumping into the river and being eaten by the flesh-devouring plants. Finch's fate is far more saver; he's turned into, by chief Von Ledebur, a card-carrying member of the walking dead!
With three out of four men of a survey team lost on this uncharted island in the Pacific another team is sent to find out what exactly happened to them. The only survivor of the group Mitchell,Glen Dixon, is more dead then alive with a wild look in his eyes, that he never closes, that has everyone on the set calling him "Winky".
Lead by TV personality Phillip Knight, Boris Karloff, the group lands on a nearby island to rent a boat and equipment to check out the mysterious atoll. Martin Schuyler, Elisha Cook, who owns the island is a bit taken that anyone will want anything to do with it. The group of people looking for the missing surveyors work for this big hotel magnate Howard Carlton, Owen Cunningham, who's interested in building a five star hotel there.
So far so good as far as "Voodoo Island" goes but when Knight and his team including boat captain Gunn, Rhodes Reason, get on shore the movie just seems to go nowhere. Mitchell who was brought along suddenly came to life and made a brake for it. Dropping dead, this time for real, Mitchell is found by the pier with a voodoo doll that was made to look like him. Right there and then the rescue team should have realized what their in for especially when there was also found a Mawanga Bag, some kind of Voodoo artifact, indicating that their all targeted for death if they ever reach the island.
Even though we have a number of flesh eating plants and some sinister Polynesian-looking natives who's chief, Fredrich Von Ledebur, looks strangely European there's nothing in the movie that really scares you. Even when the plants go into action attacking and killing Cliar (Jean Engstrom), one of the rescue team member, the scene is about as funny or believable as the scene with Bela Lugosi and the rubber octopus in "Bride of the Monster"!
We do have a strange love triangle, which is about the most interesting thing in the film, between the macho boat captain Gunn and photographer Sarah Adams, Beverly Tyler, and the soon to be departed Clair. Clair an out of the closet lesbian really gets to hit it on with Sarah and at the same time sticks it to Gunn, being the macho man that he thinks he is, who also wants to get into her pants. I have a feeling that the movie makers had Clair killed off so early in the film to avoid anyone watching from figuring out, this in the innocent USA of 1957, what exactly Clair was not only up to but who, a lesbian, she really was. Getting Clair out of the picture also made it possible for Gunn to finally get romantic with the, what seemed to me, stuck-up on men Sarah Adams. Sarah actually was getting real hot and heavy with Clair and was anything but defensive to Macho Man Gunns advances until Clair was finally dispatched from the scene.
The movie plods along with the team finally reaching, after being captured by the locals, this native village and getting the lowdown from the natives chief and witch doctor Friedich Von Ledebur to what's going on. Von Ledebur has been running the place for the last fifty years and wants no one from the outside world to interfere with his operation. Being sick and tired of the excesses and corruption of the civilized world Von Ledebur just wants to live in peace, with his natives, which is why he has anyone, like Mitchell and the missing survivors, who enter his kingdom either turned into zombies or eaten by his plants.
There's still the greedy and materialistic Schuyler and Finch (Marvyn Vye), who's hotel magnate Cunninghmans advance man, to be taken care of with Fnch getting by far the worst of it. Schuyler is at least put to his eternal rest by jumping into the river and being eaten by the flesh-devouring plants. Finch's fate is far more saver; he's turned into, by chief Von Ledebur, a card-carrying member of the walking dead!