Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968)

Published on March 1 2011 by goretide-media

Review taken from digitallyobsessed.com

Made as part of Hemisphere Pictures infamous Philippine-made "Blood" films, this 1969 entry from directors Gerardo DeLeon and Eddie Romero (this is really Romero's picture, despite the billing) is generally regarded as one of the better in the series. Mad Doctor of Blood Island falls smack between Romero's Brides of Blood (1968) and his Beast of Blood (1970), and though part of a cleverly marketed set, the films actually bear very little in common in terms of a continuing story, despite the appearance of John Ashley as the lead in all three (though as a different character each time). These films were better than average drive-in horror material, and it is there that they really found an audience and actually flourished.

This time around it's Ashley starring as Bill Foster, a "doctor of sorts" who ventures to the mysterious title island, along with well-endowed American Sheila (Angelique Pettyjohn), who is in search of her estranged alcoholic doctor father Mr. Willard (Tony Edmunds). Also along for the journey is Carlos (Ronaldo Valdez), returning back to his former homeland of Blood Island in order to retrieve his mother after the mysterious death (hello, foreshadowing!) of his father. The presence of the weird Dr. Lorca (Ronald Remy), and his equally weird experiments, throws a monkey-wrench into all of their plans. When a few of the islanders fall victim to a rumored monster, all fingers point back to Lorca, and justifiably so.

Remy's Lorca is another in a long line of wonderfully evil movie doctors whose only apparent crime is trying a little too hard to help humanity. Lorca's unorthodox experiments with chlorophyll have predictably disastrous results, including a laughable green-blooded "monster" whose face resembles a bowl of melted candle wax. Remy is charismatic, slick as the white-gloved doctor with the really dark sunglasses, and he is certainly one of the reasons to seek out this film.

Romero follows all of the tried-and-true B-movie formula elements, and a film like Mad Doctor of Blood Island is all about unadulterated drive-in camp. Even the appearance of the monster is dolled up with a silly zoom-in/zoom-out effect that he is not shy about using to excess, and it is little touches like that earmark a film like this as simple, mindless drive-in escapism. Romero delivers a steady dose of naked, nubile native girls, a decent amount of gore, and of course eventually nude Angelique Pettyjohn in an array of tight, low-cut outfits, as sort of an ultrasexed-Ginger from Gilligan's Island. The connectivity to the other films in the series is tenuous at best, with Blood Island and the mysterious "Evil One" being the main thread, though as expected, the continuity is a bit loose.

This release from Image lovingly reinstates the long-lost Green Blood Prologue, which played before the film when it ran theatrically. Filmgoers received a vial of "green blood" (colored water), and were instructed to drink it, along with the lily-white group of onscreen "teenagers," as protection from the dreaded Evil One. That's the kind of fun, exploitative marketing that is sadly a long lost art, and the inclusion of it here just makes Mad Doctor of Blood Island that more of a nostalgic good time.

Rating for Style: B-
Rating for Substance: B-

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 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063255/

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 mikeysmovies

Dual audio with English language track and audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman

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