While it compiles a general plot template for the series (chiseled American hero gets tempted by heaving chanteuse, interacts with tampering mad doctor, battles visually bizarre monster), Terror Is A Man displays a level of classy sophistication that the forthcoming films would trade in for sheer thrills. Wait a minute…are we really on Blood Island? It all comes crashing down in an avalanche of cruelty, unrequited love, confusion, and obsession. Gasp! When Girard’s mummy-puma beast escapes and kills a few villagers, Will finds himself torn between the good doctor’s logically brilliant experiments and his lust for Francis (Greta Thyssen from Journey To The Seventh Planet). Girard (Francis Lederer from Return Of Dracula), together with wife Francis and assistant Walter, is performing secret experiments concerning the evolutionary link between man and animal. Washed up on mysterious shores, sole shipwreck survivor Will finds himself at odds. Terror Is A Man (Gerry De Leon, 1959) sets the Blood Island blueprint, so let’s break ground. A little known thread of bizarre horror film history has been completely unearthed. The last two decades have seen the restoration and reissue of every Blood Island film on DVD and Blu-ray, thanks to the combined work of Image Entertainment, Retromedia, VCI, Wellspring, and Severin Films. Lucky for late-comers and reaquaintances alike, home video has come to the rescue. Several titles went MIA and the majority showed up on unwatchable VHS tapes and television broadcasts, often cut to ribbons and looking thick as muck. While the films were largely successful upon their initial gimmick-fueled releases (and re-releases), the 80s weren’t so loving. In other words, there’s reason to examine.įrom 1959 to 1973, director-writer-producer Eddie Romero, director Gerry De Leon, and producer-distributers Sam Sherman, Irwin Pizor, and Kane Lynn foisted the voodoos of Blood Island onto unsuspecting drive-in screens throughout the U.S. A juxtaposition of beautiful imagery with trashy drive-in thrills, these films are groundbreaking forebearers of the squelchy sex-n-violence that would dominate 70s horror. The results yield crude, yet accomplished works of template driven monster-art that never fail to fascinate. Grab an instrumental exotica LP, charm an issue of Eerie Publications’ “Terror Tales” to life, spice things up with a little sexual energy, and burn the combined effects to film. Beautiful lands! Isolated tension! Steamy sexual underpinnings! Insupposable monsters! Neon art-gore! Always surpassing innocence, but never pushing the exploitation TOO far, Hemisphere Pictures’ Filipino horror films set on the mythical shores of “La Isle de Sangre” are living pop-art comic books, tailor made for adult thrill-seekers. We’re headed for trash film paradise we’re headed for Blood Island. Relax, grab that blue lei, and soak it all in. As the salty air swifts clearer and the sleaze bubbles just below the water’s surface, I believe I detect the clink of cocktail glasses on the main deck. Our tiny vessel was beginning to leave port. Filipino composer Tito Arevalo's score to the 1969 film Mad Doctor of Blood Island was so good that it was used twice more, once in Beast of Blood, the 1970 finale to Hemisphere Pictures' Blood Island franchise, and again in Brain of Blood, which producer Sherman made with director Al Adamson in 1971! But this was the original and the best, utilizing a full orchestra to inspired effect, particularly on the 'Dance' sequences, which virtually invent the genre 'horror exotica.' Not only have we added as a bonus the truly unhinged radio spot that advertised Mad Doctor of Blood Island, but also the record closes with the 'Oath of Green Blood Intro' to the film, which advised audiences to drink the green 'blood' potion that was distributed as a gimmick before screenings of the movie.You’re just in time. We at Real Gone Music have teamed with Sam to release his favorite scores from his long and illustrious career in film production, each sporting rare publicity stills and a personal note from the man himself. As head of Publicity at Hemisphere Pictures and then founder of Independent-International Pictures Corp., Sam Sherman is truly one of the godfathers of the drive-in/grindhouse/horror/B-movie genre.
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