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LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

TheLittleSongbird If it wasn't for Boris Karloff, I probably would not have seen Voodoo Island. After seeing it, I do think that Karloff is the best thing about Voodoo Island, he has given far better performances but he brings a lot of class and command to his role. Elisha Cook is also good, the music is haunting and adds successfully to the sense of danger and dread and the ending is kind of creepy. Very little else works however. The cinematography is not so bad, it is sharp and looks decent enough, it's just that there isn't much that is particularly memorable and little special is done with it. The plants to put it kindly do look stupid and have absolutely nothing to do with the story or title(which was quite misleading). They don't serve much of a purpose either, they don't have much personality and the deaths(quite a low body count here) are utterly forgettable. The script and story were the biggest flaws. There is far too much talk in the script and in quality it is flimsy and has little flow. I'd forgive the slow pacing if the story and atmosphere were compelling enough. Sadly though they are not, the lack of thrills, suspense or genuine horror as well as the fact that little of it makes sense made Voodoo Island a chore to sit through in all honesty. The lesbian subplot was surprising but I am not sure whether it merged with the rest of the story or whether it was out of place and stuck out like a sore thumb, by all means it holds interest value but it leans towards the latter for me. The characters are severely underdeveloped, playing second fiddle to everything else, so we have no time to care for or even like them. Apart from Karloff and Cook, the rest of the cast don't register. And I do agree about the voodoo issue, there is little of it so you do feel that the title and story bear no relevance to one another, and the fact that the film seems to think that it occurred in the Pacific rather than the Caribbean(not nit-picking at all, this is common knowledge) is rather disturbing. I've seen MST3K mentioned here and I also agree, there are worse films that have been torn to shreds on that show but I think MST3K would think of some good material talking about Voodoo Island. Overall, not as bad as its rep but despite two good performances, a good score and the ending Voodoo Island is pretty bad. 4/10 Bethany Cox

preppy-3 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.

Michael O'Keefe Phillip Knight(Boris Karloff)makes a living writing books that debunk superstitions, curses and the such. He is hired by a mega-rich industrialist to prove that an island in the Pacific is safe enough to build a future resort in spite of mysterious disappearances. You can bet that real estate prices plummet after the discovery of carnivorous plants and roaming zombies.Really nothing to see that is horribly frightening. Your imagination is suppose to do that for you; although the score by Les Baxter is superb in the category of creepiness. Actually not a bad movie; Karloff himself stoic and bit mysterious...and he's the good guy. Familiar B-movie stalwarts fill the rest of the cast: Elisha Cook Jr., Rhodes Reason, Beverly Tyler, Joan Engstrom and Herbert Patterson.

Scarecrow-88 Scientist Phillip Knight(the always marvelous Boris Karloff, even in this) who debunks myths and superstitions as folly for the weak-minded, is sent by a major hotel industrialist to a specific island to see what has turned a man(Glenn Dixon)into a living zombie who appears healthy, but shows nothing on his face. Knight's secretary, Sarah(the simply stunning Beverly Tyler, who just looks fantastic from the moment she appears on screen to the close)and "designer" Claire Winter(Jean Engstrom)come along with Knight along with the industrialist's right hand man Barney(Murvyn Vye). Matthew Gunn(Rhodes Reason)is the skipper who will boat them to the mysterious island and Martin(Elisha Cook, Jr..who might..gasp..just die again in yet another movie)who stands to benefit financially from the success of a resort area if one is created on the supposed voodoo island. Upon once getting to the island, they encounter carnivorous plants(!), a voodoo cult who are shown often poking their heads slightly out of the forest leaves, and, gulp, possible death.It's corny, there's just no way around it, but fans of cheesy B-movie chillers might bask in it's lameness. The killer plants look like rubber inter-tubes, the hokey romance development between Sarah and Gunn is filled with horribly limp dialogue that might make you snicker, and could very well have the worst performance of Elisha Cook, Jr's career. His death scene towards the end is hilarious instead of frightening..the supposed impact of that scene elicits guffaws instead of fear. Karloff shows why he was such a wonderful actor and presence on screen when he can even make the flimsiest dialogue leap somewhat. He's damn good even when facing a dead body wrapped in killer leaves and stiff "Native Chief" Friedrich von Ledebur who looks bored out of his skull. The stench from this stinker can be smelled a mile away, but somehow Karloff still comes out of this unscathed. Known by many to feature an open lesbian seeking a relationship as Winters tries every way to convey her lust for Sarah.