Voodoo Island (1957)

Better Late Then Never

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

...and the crypto-lesbian sub-plot. But mostly Karloff.Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt) is one of the all-time great English-language actors. Not just for horror films, but anything.He's the undisputable master of underplaying. His delivery is always subtle, nuanced, and restrained. At the same time, he can embroider the most-trite dialog and make you believe Shakespeare wrote it. (Jack Elam is nearly as great an actor, though in a different sort of way.)The six-star rating is primarily for Karloff's performance. Otherwise, it would get two stars (just barely)."Voodoo Island" would make a great double feature with "Little Shop of Horrors" (especially the musical).

Hoax debunker (Boris Karloff) heads to an island to prove voodoo is bunk and gets some not-very-surprising surprises. I always thought voodoo was an African/Caribbean thing but here it's in the Pacific. Weak B "horror" film isn't scary or exciting. Still, Karloff is Karloff and he never disappoints (unless it's one of those terrible foreign movies he made where his great voice is dubbed). Rhodes Reason plays the old Bruce Cabot role of the ship's captain who exists mainly to give the film's female lead (Beverly Tyler) an age-appropriate love interest. Oh and there's a lesbian in this, too. That's interesting given the time. And hey, there's Elisha Cook! Too bad his part isn't bigger. Les Baxter's theremin music goes a long way towards making some scenes more suspenseful than they really are. Most annoying part of the film is a scene with a radio operator where he repeats "NB621Victor calling Wake Island" about a hundred times. I had a headache when the scene was over.

Boris Karloff stars as professional "hoax buster" Philip Knight, who is hired by a wealthy industrialist to prove that the South Pacific island he wants to develop isn't voodoo cursed, since the locals won't work for him otherwise. Upon arrival, he, along with a fellow group of people of various occupations(played by Elisha Cook Jr. & Rhodes Reason, among others) discover that this time, the supernatural is really at work, as they encounter mysterious forces, hostile tribes and carnivorous plants. They must recommend this place unsuitable for development, that is if they can escape with their lives... Good cast(especially Karloff) can't save this silly film, though it has understandably become a cult favorite to some.

To put this in perspective: "Voodoo Island" is still waaaay better than anything Jerry Warren, Larry Buchanan or Bill Rebane ever put out (at least it has real actors and something approaching a budget), but if Karloff wasn't in it, no one would have even noticed this little piece of static time-filler.Problems with basic fact checking (voodoo is a Caribbean phenomenon, not a Polynesian one) production values (lets go to Hawaii to film our movie...and then film everything in black and white!), plotting (Elisha Cooke's demise and Karloff's acknowledgment that voodoo is real are completely flat and unmoving), casting (no one really is all that bad in this, but several actors are clearly phoning it in), dialog (the romantic arc between the two romantic leads reads and sounds like an ABC after-school special) and a complete lack of any momentum or suspense in the screenplay...all these problems consign "Voodoo Island" to Z movie dustbin status. You'll like Karloff, but he can't carry this film far enough.