TERROR IS A MAN (1959)
(a.k.a. BLOOD CREATURE)
Article #274 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-15-2001
Posting date: 4-30-2002

The lone survivor of a shipwreck finds himself on an island where a scientist is performing strange experiments on an animal.

I’ve never quite known what to make of this off-beat variation on the Dr. Moreau story. In fact, off-beat doesn’t seem like the right way to explain it; it’s not what happens that is unusual, it’s how it is handled. It almost seems like it isn’t trying to be a horror movie; the characters are fleshed out quietly and subtly, and it refuses to make easy moral statements or decisions. I don’t think it’s quite successful, but I think it’s trying for something out of the ordinary; if it were more successful, I might be able to tell just what it is. As it is, it’s still one of the better horror films to come out of the Philippines that I’ve seen.