MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND (1968)
Article 2739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-5-2008
Posting Date: 2-11-2009
Directed by Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero
Featuring John Ashley, Angelique Pettyjohn, Ronald Remy
Country: USA / Philippines

Travelers come to an island where people are being killed off by a strange green monster.

This was the second of the “Blood Island” trilogy; I don’t know if there’s a direct connection to the first, BRIDES OF BLOOD, but the follow-up, BEAST OF BLOOD is definitely a sequel. Fans of gimmick marketing will certainly be charmed by the opening, in which the audience is told to drink the green blood that they received when they came to see the movie; this is supposed to protect them from becoming green-blooded monsters. Fans of bloody mayhem will be satisfied by this one; the attacks are truly gruesome and gory, making the sequel seem rather anemic by comparison. The non-English-speaking actors aren’t well dubbed, but it doesn’t really matter; the English-speaking actors don’t exactly rack up the best actor nominations either. It’s kind of fun in that sleazy drive-in sense, but I found the annoying camera tricks whenever the monster shows up (we get rapid zoom-in-zoom-out-zoom-in-zoom-out-etc. effects) is almost nauseating, and not in a fun way. There’s also a fair amount of nudity to add to the gore, including a nude love-making scene with Angelique Pettyjohn and John Ashley. It’s intermittently fun but intermittently disappointing as well.