(1952)
Dir - Nathan H. Juran
Overall: MEH
Another forgettable, later installment in Universal's horror camp, The Black Castle brings Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. together, both in minor rolls. Out of the two, Chaney is more sidetracked in just a small handful of scenes, once again playing a mute brute who finds a grisly end. Karloff does respectable work as a benevolent doctor, cleverly coming off as perhaps another sinister presence earlier on. Elsewhere, it is only a moderately interesting story involving a cruel, sadistic Count with a deformity and a dashingly handsome British Baron, both of whom want revenge on each other. Naturally, two characters fall in love almost immediately as well since what period-piece melodrama would be complete without such a detail? There is a pit of hungry crocodiles or alligators and premature burial is hinted at, so the macabre elements are present to be sure. As nice as it is to see Karloff and Chaney in the genre that made both men famous, The Black Castle is not very engrossing though and by this time Universal was phasing out its Gothic horror outings altogether which had peaked at least a decade before, giving this somewhat of a "scraping the barrel" feel.
(1957)
Dir - Reginald Le Borg
Overall: MEH
Bel-Air Productions' three movie deal with Boris Karloff got off to a limbering, lackluster start with Voodoo Island. Austrian-born director Reginald Le Borg, (The Mummy's Ghost, The Black Sleep, Diary of a Madman), concocts virtually zero suspense, even with a scene of a woman taking a swim for no reason and then getting hugged to death by giant, plastic foliage which also barely gets an excitable response from the rest of the cast. In his defense though, the script that he is working with is so steadily uninteresting that all of the fake killer plants in the world could not save it from being a snore. For his part, Karloff actually is not playing a doctor this time, but instead a professional skeptic with a television show. Though his involvement with the plot is as sketchy as any other detail. The rest of the characters are barely worth paying attention to, though similar to Karloff's comparatively against type role, character actor Elisha Cook Jr. is pleasantly NOT playing a drunk bum that is terrified of everything. The most noteworthy aspect is that this was the first film appearance of Adam West, but he got shafted anyway by remaining uncredited.
(1958)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: GOOD
Boris Karloff was rarely as aggressive on screen as he was in Amalgamated Productions' The Haunted Strangler, (aka Grip of the Strangler), one of if not his very last physically demanding performances. As an obsessed novelist turned violently manic murderer, Karloff is his usual calm, charming self initially, but spends the better part of the later half practically more wild and unhinged than he ever was before. Contorting his face to near-comical proportions, ranting and raving as he is locked up and put in a straight-jacket, and frantically murdering both randoms and those close to him, it is a riveting portrayal from the then seventy-one year old horror icon. Directed by Robert Day, (who worked with Karloff again for the studio in the same year's Corridors of Blood), there is really not much else of note in the production, with the script teetering on being a bit too sloppy to really work and none of the other characters come remotely close to being anything except forgettable. Thankfully though, it is a case where Karloff's work alone is more than enough to recommend the film as a whole.
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