Voodoo Woman (1957)

Overrated and overhyped

I'll tell you why so serious

Captivating movie !

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

***SPOILERS*** Hearing that there's gold in them jungles Pittsburg gold digger Marilyn Blanchard, Marla English, and her boyfriend Rick Brady, Lance Fuller,are hot to get their hands on it but need help, a professional jungle guide, to get to it. That problem is solved for them when Marilyn after failing to get explorer Harry West, Norman Willis, have her go along with him in the unexplored African bush murders him and gets the guide he hired Ted Bronson, no relation to movie macho-man Charles Bronson, played by future TV and private detective he-man Mike Conners to lead both her and Rick to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or untamed jungle.Back at the far off jungle village the crazed Dr.Roland Gerard, Tim Conway, has no interest in gold or his mentally abused, by him, wife the pretty Susan Gerard, Mary Ellen Kay, who's terrified of him and his insane experiments. He's only interested in creating a race of superhuman beings that will like in the words of the late Dr. Eric Vernoff, in "Bride of the Monster" dreamed of, conquer the world. It's the native girl Zuranda, Jean Davis, who's the first victim of Dr. Gerard's mad experiment which goes sour in her not having the killer instinct that his creation needs. Susan knowing that her husband is not only cracked but planning to use her in his future experiments tries to get her loyal native houseboy BoBo, Otis Greene, to get her out of harms way, the native village, before Dr. Gerard uses her for his next experiment to create a master race of superhuman beings. BoBo for his part got himself killed, with a native spear in his back, trying to get word back to civilization in what a nut case his boss Dr. Geared is and to send help, the local police in force, to the village before he ends up having everyone, man woman child & animal, there killed!***SPOILERS*** It turns out that when Marilyn together with her boyfriend Rick and jungle guide Ted Bronson finally get to the village she turns on Rick murdering him just for the fun of it but leaves a confused and befuddled Bronson alive so that he, knowing the area like the back of his hand, can lead her to the gold that's supposedly hidden there. With Dr. Gerard seeing that the murderous and unfeeling for human life Marilyn is the prefect candidate for his experiment he talked her into going along, by being transformed into a Frankenstein-like monster, with his insane experiment! The predictable ending, in having seen enough of these mad scientist or doctor movies, couldn't come soon enough with Marilyn becoming a 7 foot tall , with the strength of ten men, Voodoo Woman and tearing the entire village apart but getting screwed, figuratively not physically, by Dr. Gerard in that the gold that he promised her, in agreeing into being turned into a monster, was nothing but a pipe dream. Anyway with her horrendous looks and unquenchable thirst for blood Marilyn in the condition that she was to find herself in had no interest in spending it.

Random thoughts that popped into my head while watching "Voodoo Woman":1) Poor Tom Conway. Either he thought this role was beneath him (but took it anyway to keep the wolf from the door) or he was completely out of his depth, because he gives a completely squirrelly and disconnected performance where he is obviously reading from cue cards most of the time. Plus...that HAT!!! 2) Poor Lance Fuller. The guy had a certain way about him, but alas his talent is strictly 3rd tier, and it doesn't help that the character he plays is a greasy slimeball.3) Poor Mike Connors. He pretty much carries the movie, but he should have carried it straight out the door and into the dumpster.4) The lead female - someone should have gently taken her aside and told her the difference between "tough noir temptress" and "irritating, hateful harpy". She actually looked pretty good in the role, but every time she opened her mouth, I wanted to punch her.6) The final scene where the murderous harpy tries to retrieve the final remaining chunk of gold from the edge of the volcanic pit where it came to rest, only to lose her balance and fall in...is the single most badly staged and unbelievable choreography of a "fall" I can remember seeing. Apparently it never occurred to the poor lady to bend her knees.7) This wasn't nearly as bad as earlier AIP fodder like "Beast With A Million Eyes", and I am sure someone had fun watching it as the bottom half of a Drive in double feature...but 40+ years down the road, it has not aged well. Good AIP/Corman stuff almost always had the germ of something interesting and creative driving them...but this poor cast- off just comes off trite, rote, and derivative.8) At the end of the day, people who were trying to make a living in the movie business got paid. At least there's that.

*Spoiler/plot- 1956, Natives in Africa are invoking magic with a modern sci-fi twist, a mad scientist is involved seeking to produce a race of super humans. Gold seekers invade the village and they become sacrifices to the voodoo god and a rescue adventure begins.*Special Stars- Mike 'Touch' Connors, Marla English, Tom Conway, Lance Fuller, Mary Ellen Kaye.*Theme- Africa holds some of the oddest and strange customs and beliefs.*Trivia/location/goofs- Enjoy or NOT the early acting Mike "Manix" Connors aka B-Movie idol billed as 'Touch' Connors at this early time of his career.*Emotion- An enjoyable but rather crazy version of the "Frankenstein" plot story, only in Africa.

Voodoo Woman (1957)* (out of 4) Really bad film about a mad scientist in the African jungle turning a woman into a monster by using voodoo. I love these old "B" movies and AIP was always one of the best but this film here is just downright boring, slow and not interesting in anyway. The film is full of dialogue, which is poorly written and slows everything down. The performances are all equally bad but not bad enough to where we can laugh at them. The film is bad from start to finish but it never gets to the point to where you can laugh at it, which means the film is just hard to watch.