Severin Films’ new Blu-ray set The Blood Island Collection (initially available as a limited edition box set; 3 of the 4 films are also for sale individually) brings together the full series of notorious horror films set on the titular island from prolific Filipino directors Eddie Romero (The Twilight People) and Gerardo “Gerry” de Leon (Women in Cages). Released by Hemisphere Pictures (the Philippines-based production company started by American expat Kane W. Lynn and producer Irwin Pizor), each is a wild, sex and violence filled monster movie like a needle to the Id. The set kicks off with de Leon’s Terror is a Man (1959), later released as Blood Creature. Separated by the subsequent Blood Island trilogy by nine years, it is more reserved than those films, focusing instead on atmosphere and making the most of its black and white photography. Borrowing liberally from H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, the story concerns a scientist, Dr. Girard (Francis Lederer, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Return of Dracula), who from his remote island is obsessed with turning animals into humans through a bit of surgery and some experiments on the brain. His greatest success is a panther-man, who at the outset escapes and kills one of the local native girls. The audience surrogate is William Fitzgerald (Richard Derr, When Worlds Collide), a shipwreck survivor (like Dr. Moreau‘s protagonist) who is brought into the doctor’s home. Naturally, the doctor has a younger, sex-starved wife, Frances (Greta Thyssen), who takes notice of their new visitor. During a surgery scene, a very brief, graphic scalpel slicing is accompanied by a warning buzzer so timid audience members can look away – a technique used later in Ivan Reitman’s satirical Cannibal Girls (1973).
Dr. Girard (Francis Lederer) and his tormented wife Frances (Greta Thyssen) in “Terror is a Man.”
Not just a dry run for the Blood Island films to come, Terror is a Man places an admirable emphasis on shadow-draped mood and empathy for its monster. Admittedly, the panther-man looks somewhat ridiculous: he’s covered in mummy bandages like some monster kit-bashing, exposing only a paw and a cat’s head; when he’s fully covered, his two gauze-wrapped cat’s ears still stick up at the top. But he’s a sympathetic creature, reserving most of his anger for the man who created him, fixated on the pretty girl (as all monsters must since King Kong), and not killing that much until the finale. In fact, if, by drive-in standards, anything can be held against the film’s execution, it’s that there’s a long period in the middle of the film in which order is maintained, the monster is leashed, the villagers are safe, and Lederer has pages and pages of scientific nonsense to read aloud. But even these scenes are livened by Fitzgerald’s exploration of the island estate, discovering the secret lab and the bandaged body with cat-eyes peering out. With no nudity, the sex element is limited to Thyssen’s cleavage and an irrelevant but humorously diverting scene in which she writhes alone on top of her bed. Most memorable are the first killing scene, shown from the monster’s point of view as he stalks his victims at night, and the denouement, an unexpectedly lyrical moment in which the wounded creature is saved by a village boy and set adrift in a boat – not so much promising a sequel as giving a creature who’s been tortured day after day a chance at a new beginning far from “Blood Island.” Severin’s Blu-ray, taken from “a new 4K scan from a fine-grain print recently discovered at the UCLA Film Archive,” looks fantastic, though the tinny soundtrack leaves a bit to be desired (much of the problem being native to the source material, I’m sure).
A late night sacrifice in “Brides of Blood.”
Brides of Blood (aka Island of Living Horror, aka Jungle Fury, 1968), co-directed by de Leon and Romero, is an altogether different beast. Kicking off the Blood Island series proper, it’s much more explicit in its gore and titillation, including brief dashes of nudity. The film plays like a Martin Denny exotica record rendered as a horny fever dream. The acting is stiff and the monster looks even more ridiculous than the one in Terror is a Man (mercifully he’s usually only seen from a distance). But, like the irradiated jungle at the center of the story, everything in this movie seems wild and alive – and usually wriggling and writhing. Three Americans come to Blood Island: Jim Farrell from the Peace Corps (John Ashley, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), who wants to help the island modernize; Dr. Henderson (Kent Taylor, of the TV series Boston Blackie and films like Death Takes a Holiday), looking for signs of radiation from nearby bomb tests; and his blond, busty wife Carla (Beverly Hills, aka Beverly Powers, Kissin’ Cousins), who is sexually frustrated, as required. In a typical scene, Carla, restless in the middle of the night, crawls on top of her sleeping husband and labors to initiate a make-out session while he remains stone-faced, eyes closed. Either that man is dead or he is very, very rude. Turns out the island has been contaminated by fallout, with vines and branches that move of their own accord, reaching out to strangle and dismember anyone who ventures too close. In a neat touch, there’s a gauntlet the villagers must walk between the flailing trees and vegetation. Step quickly!
Mario Montenegro has some skin problems.
Reverting to “old ways,” the islanders have also begun to sacrifice women by lottery to appease a humanoid creature which looks a bit like Tabonga of From Hell It Came (1957) notoriety, only not as good, if you can imagine. The monster will only accept women because, here we go, it rapes them and tears them to pieces. Lighting torches and ripping the tops off the victims, the villagers race away before the lumbering creature in the rubber mask comes stomping into the clearing. At a remove from the natives is the wealthy estate owner Esteban Powers (Mario Montenegro), who invites the Americans to stay with him and warns them away from the jungle for obvious reasons. Esteban, who looks younger than he is and goes missing in the middle of the night, has a terrible secret. Can you guess what it is? Probably you can. Jim falls for a local village girl, Alma (Eva Darren), and when she’s chosen to be sacrificed, he disrupts the ritual by rescuing her (though only after the other poor woman is torn to pieces). After the evil has been destroyed, it’s time to relax around the fire while the native girls do a mating dance. Under her father’s approving eye, Alma performs a sexually charged solo routine before Jim takes her into the jungle where all the dancers take their boyfriends. Has exotic escapism ever been so blunt?
The new Blu-ray is a mixed bag, with the image being a bit too bright in certain scenes, and shots that were surely intended as day-for-night left undarkened, so that during the nighttime sacrificial ritual we jarringly move from the middle of the night to broad daylight and back again. But the new 4K scan pulls a lot of detail from the interpositive, and the proper way to watch this film is after you’ve had a few cocktails anyway. Up next: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) and Beast of Blood (1970).
