(1959)
Dir - Gerardo de Leon/Eddie Romero
Overall: MEH
The first in producer Kane W. Lynn and director Eddie Romero's unrelated "Blood Island" series, Terror Is a Man, (Blood Creature, Creature from Blood Island, The Gory Creatures, Island of Terror, Gore Creature), is a dull Island of Dr. Moreau knock-off with a wretchedly boring first and second act and distracting, stock music playing throughout nearly the entire affair. A co-production between the US and Philippines, it is notable as one of the first horror films from the latter country and while it has a sincere presentation despite its noticeably small budget and drive-in, B-movie aesthetics, it is poorly paced and overly talky to a fault. Only the last twenty-odd minutes finally unveil a lone human/animal hybrid creation that has merely been teased upon for a full hour before that and once it shows up, still nothing happens besides it being tied to a surgery bed, making ungodly noises, and eventually getting angry and kidnapping the film's bombshell eye candy in Greta Thyssen. The whole things ends on a whimper and pretty much maintains that type of anti-climactic propulsion throughout, with stagnant direction from both Romero and Gerardo de Leon who would help co-helm the next two entries as well.
(1968)
Dir - Gerardo de Leon/Eddie Romero
Overall: MEH
Nine years after their first Blood Island collaboration, producer Kane W. Lynn and directors Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero revisited the concept of diabolical shenanigans happening on an isolated, Philippine land mass with Brides of Blood, (Brides of the Beast, Danger on Tiki Island, Grave Desires, Island of Living Horror). This time shot in color and featuring naked native women propped up in sacrificial fashion as well as some severed body parts, the updated presentation still wields mostly boring and silly results. It is the usual set up of attractive white people showing up in a foreign setting where the locals are depicted as primitive, scantily clad savages and this particular variation of the formula throws in rubber tree branches that come to life, atom bomb radiation, and a goofy looking humanoid monster that makes the same artificially groany noise over and over again. Of course most of the screen time just has everybody sitting in chairs while talking, walking around the jungle, or making sexual advances on one another with B-grade action only mildly sprinkled in for some gaudy chuckles.
(1969)
Dir - Gerardo de Leon/Eddie Romero
Overall: WOOF
Along with the gore and nudity, the third entry in Gerardod de Leon and Eddie Romero's Blood Island series The Mad Doctor of Blood Island, (Tomb of the Living Dead, The Mad Doctor of Crimson Island), also increased the boredom tenfold. "All talk and no action" is the appropriate tag line here with a structure so aggressively sluggish that it is almost impossible to even pay attention to what is going on. Something about green blood and yet another unfortunate local who turns into a growling monster with bad makeup on. Actor John Ashley returns after also appearing in the previous year's Brides of Blood, playing a different though just as zero charismatic of a character, but he is honestly no more forgettable than everyone else here. The typical low budget tactic of slowly padding the entire movie with uninteresting exposition and characters walking around is laughably broken up with rapid-fire zooms during the very, (very), infrequent, violent attacks by the gross moss man creature thing, all in a hail marry attempt to liven up a hopelessly flat-lined product. Even by the franchise's understandably low stakes, this is a worthless installment and one that Romero himself allegedly considered "one of the worst things we ever did".
(1970)
Dir - Eddie Romero
Overall: WOOF
The only positive aspect concerning the final entry in the Blood Island series Beast of Blood, (Blood Devils), is just that; it is the final entry. Eddie Romero takes the helm solo now with the previous three movie's co-director Gerardo de Leon finally having enough of this nonsense. The biggest two problems with every other installment in the franchise reach their "peak" here, namely that A), John Ashley is probably the least charismatic actor in the history of cinema and B), the pacing is catastrophically awful. While one could point to Romero as the most deserving of blame, (since this is the first of these crapfests that he not only directed and produced, but also penned the screenplay for), the man is clearly working with limited funds that are strictly in line with countless other forgettable drive-in cheapies. Still, the story utilized here is so forgettable and the direction so lifeless that viewers could find themselves having an impossible time describing the plot to someone even moments after finishing watching it. The stupid mad doctor does experiments, Ashley gets it on with both a scantily clad island girl and a scantily clad Caucasian girl, there is a monster body whose head is hooked up to wires ala The Brain That Wouldn't Die, and the rest is people slowly walking around the jungle while occasionally stopping to deliver some lines that propel absolutely nothing forward.
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