This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

A Disappointing Continuation

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Writer, TV host and debunker Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) is hired to investigate a South Pacific island where people have mysteriously disappeared. He takes along a bunch of obnoxious stereotypical characters. When he gets there he discovers zombies, man-eating trees and hostile natives.Slow and VERY boring movie. The movie is more than half over before they even GET to the island! There's endless talking and tramping about a jungle, stupid looking "man-eating" trees and a totally unnecessary love story shoehorned in. The dialogue is terrible and the story goes nowhere. The only good parts of the movie are good acting by Karloff and Elisha Cook, hunky Rhodes Reason is good to look at, there's a good music score by Les Baxter and, in a surprise subplot, Claire (Jean Engstrom) is clearly a lesbian and hits on the one other woman in the expedition (Beverly Tyler)! Still it doesn't make this worth sitting through.

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.

Having previously just watched director Reginald Le Borg's The Black Sleep which featured Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., Tor Johnson, and in his last active film role, Bela Lugosi, I decided to watch his next movie which starred another horror movie icon: Boris Karloff. He plays Philip Knight, a television personality who regularly debunks certain myths on his show. He now is on assignment to do the same for a hotel magnate after one of four explorers of the title island-a Mitchell (Glenn Dixon)-comes back with a fixed stunned look. Coming along are Knight's secretary-Sarah Adams (Beverly Tyler), Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye), Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason), Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom), and Martin Schuyler (Elisha Cook, Jr.). I'll stop there and just say not much happens until the last 15 minutes. In fact, the most shocking thing that occurs involves a native pre-teen girl and one of the big plants. Of the performers, Karloff and somewhat Cook come off best though many of the others do well with the less-than-stellar material they're given. Still, like I said, the movie has its moments like this Karloff line that pretty sums up the near-universal appeal of horror films: "The public loves to be scared. Excites the imagination. Makes them believe in the existence of things unreal."

"Voodoo Island" was Boris Karloff's first American film in four years. Nearing his 70th birthday, good parts must have been hard to come by, given that the old Gothic style horror for which he became famous, was now not in vogue.Hotel entrepreneur Howard Carlton (Owen Cunningham) is planning a new hotel/resort on a distant Pacific Island. A survey team that had been sent out earlier disappeared except for Mitchell (Glenn Dixon) who returned in a zombie like state. Carlton hires Philip Knight (Karloff) an investigative reporter to investigate the remote island where the disappearances occurred.The expedition includes Knight, his assistant Sara Adams, Carlton's front man Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye), Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom), local resort manager Martin Schuler (Elisha Cook) and his assistant Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason). Knight also insists that Mitchell be brought along. Before they leave for the island, Mitchell mysteriously dies and a voodoo death warning is left.When the expedition arrives at the "voodoo" island, strange things start to happen. First their boat breaks down and later they discover their food supply spoiled trapping them on the island all the while under the watchful eyes of mysterious natives. Then, while enjoying a swim Claire is killed by a flesh eating plant. The rest are captured by the natives. Schuler refuses to leave and later becomes a zombie as does Finch while watching two children play. Will the others escape?Karloff is totally miscast as the fast talking "Gerardo" type investigative reporter. Although he does his best, he certainly deserved better. He would make two more films in 1958 and then disappear from the screen until 1963 when Roger Corman "rediscovered" him for "The Raven".The cast spends most of the film trudging across the jungle island. We never see any so-called black magic and are left to wonder how the zombies are created. We do get to see some cheap looking dolls with pins in them though. This was obviously a film on a low budget. Most of it was shot outdoors and the special effects are cheaply done.Strictly for the lower half of a double bill.