Voodoo Man (1944)

Dreadfully Boring

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Blistering performances.

VOODOO MAN is one of many horror B-flicks that Bela Lugosi shot for Monogram Pictures in the early 1940s. It has William "One Shot" Beaudine directing, no less, and it features a hodge podge plot about some evil voodoo practitioners kidnapping beautiful young women and holding them captive in an isolated house for their own sinister rituals. Lugosi is at his sinister yet urbane best, as ever, and there are some of those eye close-ups that were a staple for the actor ever since WHITE ZOMBIE. Horror fans get their money's worth with the presence of John Carradine as a simpleton servant and George Zucco as the evil voodoo priest. It's cheap, repetitive, and cheerful, and at just an hour it doesn't outstay its welcome.

Voodoo Man is like a lot of the poverty row horrors in that it showed signs that there was a good film in there somewhere, but somehow it just doesn't quite come together. The film starts out pretty good and the first fifteen minutes or so allow for a fine introduction to the story. Girls are disappearing in the town and everyone is concerned. Then we are treated to an excellent scene with Louis Currie and Bela Lugosi with some eerie lighting, great close ups, and a generally spooky atmosphere. Things are looking up!But then 4 minutes later we have George Zucco in face paint and a headdress chanting rubbish backed up by John Carradine acting a fool and banging on a bongo drum. Sigh. Welcome to a Monogram horror film.Oh well, the story continues and it becomes typical poverty row horror dribble with ineffective humor thrown in. The good part is that Louis Currie, Wanda McKay, and the other kidnapped girls look great. George Zucco in the headdress is always funny, and I laughed out loud when the Sheriff said, "Gosh all fish hooks" when he spots Louis Currie wandering around the road. You just can't get that kind of dialog in an 'A' picture.Voodoo Man is not a total waste. Bela Lugosi is fine in the film, and the ladies look great. The first fifteen minutes could almost be mistaken for a better film, and if that mood had continued, Voodoo Man could have been so much more.

"I'd turn back if I were you", Bert Lahr says in "The Wizard of Oz". The poor women in this would be better off to remember that line as they are carried off by John Carradine for mad scientist Bela Lugosi's nefarious plans. Basically a re-tread of "The Corpse Vanishes", this has bizarre witch doctor Lugosi utilizing voodoo with young women to bring his long dead wife back to life rather than an aged Elizabeth Bathory type harping at Lugosi to return her to her youthful state in that 1942 cult classic. This has the benefit of director William Beaudine, the Ed Wood of the 40's, who directed hundreds of features and shorts from the silent era through the 1950's. Beaudine could take the worst script and turn it into something fairly entertaining, which is precisely what happens here. Lugosi, the lead boogie man in this, is surrounded by fellow spooksters John Carradine and George Zucco. The use of a television like device to see what's going on outside Lugosi's lair is just one of the ingenious plot points that helps you forgive the lameness of the story. There's a wonderful twist in the very last minutes of the film that is hysterically funny.

Voodoo Man one unintentionally hilarious film done by Monogram has Bela Lugosi a scientist and George Zucco, gas station owner by day and Voodoo Man at night, trying to revive Lugosi's long dead wife Ellen Hall who Bela has kept in a zombie like state. They need the life essence of other young women and Lugosi keeps several on ice, but has to keep getting more. When he kidnaps Louise Currie who is going to her sister Wanda McKay's wedding to Tod Andrews that sets the action of the film in motionYou have to love John Carradine who had one of the great erudite speaking voices ever playing one of two half wit helpers to Lugosi. And how George Zucco was able to keep a straight face while Carradine beat it out on the bongo drum, the magical chant of 'Ramboona' is a great tribute to his ability as an actor. You've got to see Zucco doing his Ramboona chant, you'll be in hysterics.Voodoo Man does that voodoo that we love so well.