Source: My Own Collection
Grade: C-
You know honestly I really wish that I could say that I loved this movie and that its a great late 50s Karloff horror film but I can`t even pretend that I liked it. Its just to much of a bad movie that its not even good. Its overwhelmingly underdeveloped and most of the movie feels like a really dull drama than a horror movie. If it were not for Boris Karloff, a couple cool plus point, and a few hilariously stupid moments this movie would be a complete lose and probably earn a D or F.
I`m going to start with the good stuff of this movie; for one its got the great Boris Karloff. Who whenever is simply on screen is awesome. In this movie though they put him in a more unusual role, were instead of playing the voodoo priest or mad scientist of the "voodoo island" like you'd think, he plays a famous skeptic who is notorious for debunking myths and legends and is going to this island to debunk its voodoo claims. He`s different as this type of character but essentially plays the part to full satisfaction.
Elisha Cook is this movie also and plays pretty much the same kind of character he plays in The Haunted Palace and House On Haunted Hill. That overly fearful guy who no one takes very seriously. Like I said before they're are somethings he does in this movie that are just hilariously stupid, like for example if you get kidnapped by a bunch of cannibals like they did in this movie do you up right call them "inferior animals that don`t deserve to live"? Well apparently he thought so and of course met his demise because of it.
Oh and lastly something I didn't know or even notice until after I finished watching was this movie was Adam Wests film debut. He has a super small role as a weather station radio operator. Which I found to be actually pretty funny. Other than this I cant think of anything else that's really nice to say about this movie.
The biggest problem with this movie is that its so painfully underdeveloped and obviously rushed. It seems the writer wrote the thing in one day and just went with the rough draft (kind like how a lot of Roger Cormans early movies like The Last Women On Earth and Creature From the Haunted Sea were done). On top of that none of the cool horror elements introduced were barely used, for instance the man eating plants that are on the island were pretty much squandered and replaced with nonsensical and super dull drama between all these uninteresting characters who wear there pants really high. When the movie does finally end it is an extremely abrupt ending that outdoes resolve barely anything. I could not tell you the ending its so random, your just going to have to see it yourself.
Unfortunately I was not a fan of this movie. I've always known it was not one of Karloff`s best movie`s but I still tried to hold onto this faint hope that maybe i`d end up liking it. In fact if Karloff was not in this movie at all i`d say it would just be a cheap bad forgettable horror movie. So unless your really compelled to watch this movie I say avoid it and watch one of Karloff`s better 50s horror movies like Frankenstein 1970 or Corridors of Blood.
