Tuesday 26 October 2010

DVD: THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND

So:

Is there more gore than Brides of Blood? Yes!
Is there more nudity than Brides of Blood? Yes!
Is there more sex than Brides of Blood? Yes! (But then there wasn't any really at all in BoB)
Is the monster better than Brides of Blood? Um, possibly.
Is it better than Brides of Blood? Yes! Er, no, er, maybe. Ah hell, I just liked of Brides of Blood more.

First off, this isn't the same Blood Island as the last one. It just happens to be an island named Blood where strange things happen. There are no wobbly plants or other mutations. John Ashley returns as the lead but he's a different character. So it's a sequel in name only, and that it's a horror movie set on an island named Blood.

Ashley (see main cast on poster above) is a pathologist sent by the government to investigate stuff. Pettyjohn (a younger actress than Beverly Hills in BoB but just as well endowed) has come to find her father whom she hasn't seen since she was twelve -he's become an alcoholic beach bum. Remy is the doctor with a gammy leg, a sinister manservant, and a superior attitude. Guess who is the title character? Go on, guess. No, you're wrong, it isn't Ashley it's Remy. What a shocking reveal. Not listed above but the third person on the boat is young Alfonso Carvajal as Ramu who has come to get his mother off the island where his father died several years ago. His mother, Tita Munoz is quite a hottie (40 at the time and looks younger and Ramu -or rather the actor- looks as if he's looking at her wishing she wasn't his mum or what she's doing when shooting is finished for the day) and she doesn't want to leave, preferring to stay and help the Mad Doctor. Also hanging around the Mad Doctor's house is Ramu's childhood friend Marla, now a nubile and available young woman.

Um, oh yes, the Chlorophyll Monster. There seem to be a few people O.D.ing of excess chlorophyll as diagnosed by the Mad Doctor who recommends soup for a recovering victim, "but no vegetables." But there is only one Chlorophyll Monster who follows a naked native girl (she'd been skinnydipping) and rips her apart in the opening scene.

After that there's a lot of character stuff and info dumping broken up by odd stuff like Pettyjohn's alky dad doing the peeping tom act on a skinnydipping native girl -bad! bad!- before we cut back to the monster doing the hack and slash and shaking it (severed heads, limbs) all about.
Ramu finds a letter from his departed daddy dated a few months after departed daddy's death. What can this mean? Let's open his tomb and find- a python which Ashley manly throws into the bushes- but no body.

To cut a long story short: Marla had sex with Ramu's dad starting when she was fourteen and he was the best lover she's ever had but this doesn't stop her stripping off and jumping on Ramu. Pettyjohn gets naked and gets it on with Ashley. Tastefully, despite a briefly glimpsed boob. Or it might have been a shoulder. I'd taken a statin tablet earlier than I should have, closed my eyes and opened them again at the scene below.
The Mad doctor kidnaps Ramu. The Monster kills several more people. Ashley discovers the secret laboratory where the Mad Doctor has been experimenting on people and rescues Ramu. The Monster (Ramu's father) arrives and rips his nubile young ex-girlfriend to shreds Oh, and he also killed his wife earlier, the luscious Tita Munoz whom I suspect I've gone on way too much about. Big explosion, Mad Doctor and Monster die. Our three heroes leave the island older and wiser.

Well, yes I enjoyed it but it somehow lacked the more naive charm and clunky chunky monster of its predecessor. The jacket blurb quotes someone saying that it's the goriest of horror movies from the 60's except for Herschell Gordon Lewis's sadistic schlock. This may be true in terms of body parts strewn about but you don't actually see them being removed in detail unlike, as I've said, the sadistic and cruel garbage by Lewis so they don't really have much impact. Still, I'll be keeping it and watching it again sometime.

And before I go, here's the Mad Doctor himself with Ashley and Pettyjohn.
And here's the Mad Monster about to turn his ex-girlfriend into top quality mince.


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