‘Creeping terror… striking from the depths of Hell!’
Voodoo Woman is a 1957 horror film about a mad scientist attempting to create an indestructible being to serve his will. When a party of gold seekers stumbles upon his jungle hideaway, the scientist realises that Marilyn the expedition’s evil leader is the perfect subject for his work.
Produced by Alex Gordon and directed by Edward L. Cahn (It! The Terror from Beyond Space; Invisible Invaders; The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake) from a screenplay by actor Russell Bender and V.I. Voss.
The Carmel Productions movie stars Marla English (The She-Creature), Tom Conway (Cat People; I Walked with a Zombie), Mike Connors (Nightkill; Too Scared to Scream), Lance Fuller (This Island Earth; Scream, Evelyn, Scream!), Mary Allen Kay (Francis in the Haunted House), Paul Dubov (Day the World Ended; Crash!).
Originally titled Black Voodoo, the film was shot on a fast working schedule of six days and a budget of $80,000. Producer Alex Gordon wanted Peter Lorre who again refused to work with him and then called George Zucco, the star of Voodoo Man, but he was too ill to work. With the shooting date drawing near, Tom Conway was chosen, who like Marla English and Paul Dubov, had also been in The She-Creature.
In an interview with Tom Weaver, Mike Connors said,
“I remember that they had set the jungle up on a stage, and you could only shoot about ten feet at a time. Then they’d move the camera and shoot ten feet going the other way, and then ten feet sideways and ten feet this way. It was kinda difficult to visualize what you were trying to put over, it was tough to see a jungle that was only ten feet by ten feet square and picture yourself deep in the heart of Africa!”
The original make-up design for the Voodoo Woman was deemed unsuitable at the last minute and the title monster is actually the She Creature costume hurriedly stripped of its tail, fins and pincer-like claws. What remained was the bulky Thing-style body, which was wrapped in a burlap sarong and topped with a modified skull mask and big blond wig. Cahn worked actively to conceal this fact, using quick cuts and keeping her mostly in shadows or behind foliage. The rumbling growl of a lion was also dubbed for added effect.
Voodoo Woman was released by American International Pictures (AIP) on a double feature with Roger Corman’s The Undead. In 1966 it was loosely remade into a TV film, Curse of the Swamp Creature by Larry Buchanan.
Plot [includes spoilers]:
Harry West (Norman Willis) discovers gold in the idol worshipped by a jungle voodoo tribe in Bantalaya, a French-owned jungle colony. Harry enlists a pair of treasure hunters from the United States, one of them being the beautiful but ruthless Marilyn Blanchard (Marla English). Hoping to take the treasure for themselves, Marilyn murders Harry and steals his map. They con the innocent Ted Bronson (Mike Connors) into acting as a jungle guide and leading them to the tribe that owns the idol.
Meanwhile, Doctor Roland Gerard (Tom Conway), a mad scientist who has exiled himself deep in the same jungle, is using a combination of native voodoo and his own biochemical discoveries in an attempt to create a superhuman being. He hopes that this being, possessing the best of man and beast, will be the mother of a new perfect and deathless race which he will control with a mixture of hypnosis and telepathy. He is accompanied by his wife, Susan (Mary Ellen Kay), who no longer loves Doctor Gerard but is prevented from leaving by her husband and the natives.
Doctor Gerard’s initial attempts to create a female superbeing are a failure because the transformation is only temporary and the native girl used as the subject of the experiment lacks the killer instinct he deems necessary to carryout his instructions. However, when he meets the treasure hunters, he decides that Marilyn would be a perfect subject for his experiment. He successfully turns her into an invulnerable monster, but when she learns her quest for gold was in vain, he loses his mental control over her and she destroys him. Ted and Susan are able to escape in the ensuing chaos. After becoming human again, Marilyn tries to salvage the idol which has almost fallen into a poisonous gas pit which the natives use for their sacrifices, and she accidentally loses her balance and falls into it herself, only to rise up out of it as the beast once again.
Meanwhile, Doctor Roland Gerard (Tom Conway), a mad scientist who has exiled himself deep in the same jungle, is using a combination of native voodoo and his own biochemical discoveries in an attempt to create a superhuman being. He hopes that this being, possessing the best of man and beast, will be the mother of a new perfect and deathless race which he will control with a mixture of hypnosis and telepathy…
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Choice dialogue:
“It isn’t that he’s so smart, it’s just that you’re stupid. How did I ever get mixed up with a guy like you anyway?”
“We’re going into the jungle to bring back a secret recipe for borscht!”
“I knew you were poison the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“You’re insane! You’re a maniac!”
Cast and characters:
Marla English as Marilyn Blanchard, a treasure hunter
Lance Fuller as Rick Brady, Marilyn’s partner
Tom Conway as mad scientist Doctor Roland Gerard
Mary Ellen Kay as Susan Gerard, the doctor’s wife
Mike “Touch” Connors as Ted Bronson, a jungle guide
Martin Wilkins as Chaka the witch doctor
Otis Greene as Bobo, the houseboy
Emmett Smith as Gandor
Jean Davis as Zaranda, an African girl
Paul Dubov as Marcel Chateau, the bar owner
Giselle D’Arc as Yvette, the singer at Marcel’s bar
Norman Willis as Harry West, businessman
Trailer:
Free to watch online on YouTube:
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