Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The last of nine films that horror icon Bela Lugosi made for the ultra-cheap Monogram studio. It's certainly one of the more intriguing in this series, thanks to a twisted story and a cast of vintage old reliable scare men.Sneaky gas station owner Nicholas (George Zucco) steers young women down the wrong road whenever they get lost in their automobiles and require directions at his place. After sending them off on their gullible way, he hot tails it to the telephone to alert Dr. Marlowe (Lugosi) that another victim will soon arrive. The doc utilizes his dimwitted henchman Toby (John Carradine) to help kidnap the girls and take them to his basement, so Bela can place them into a trance and use them to restore life to his lovely but brain dead wife. The method is for Lugosi and Zucco to don voodoo garb and chant bizarre rites while Carradine bangs maniacally on a drum, in an effort to transfer the life spirit out of the hypnotized victims and into the doc's unresponsive spouse.Sounds like a hoot, does it not? This film got an extra boost around the time of this writing due to a wonderful newly restored Blu-ray release from Olive Films. Looking way better than ever before or than it probably deserves, this is a slight hour of absurd fun. Lugosi is restrained and has some emotional moments when caring for his wife's well being, and it is such a laugh to see Shakespearean veteran Carradine making an utter buffoon out of himself. How did he do it? Lord knows they couldn't afford to pay him enough. **1/2 out of ****.

Like many horror films of the time period, it's all in fun and Voodoo Man is no exception. It's entertaining, good for a few giggles and, as usual, enjoyable to watch Zucco, Lugosi and Carradine on screen.Here we have Bela Lugosi as Dr. Richard Marlowe, a mad scientist of sorts, that wants to bring his long dead wife back to life. Young women are captured, hypnotized, "zombified" and kept in Marlowe's dungeon, these women are part of the plan to bring back Mrs. Marlowe.George Zucco plays the evil high voodoo priest that mumbles mumbo-jumbo, while John Carradine is the strangest character of them all - a guy that doesn't have much upstairs.Overall a really fun movie - quite enjoyable way to spend an hour with 3 great legends of horror! 8.5/10

"Voodoo Man" is a silly horror film from Monogram Pictures. Fortunately, the film very consciously knows it's silly and because of this, it makes an otherwise stupid film quite enjoyable--particularly at the end.When the film begins, a young woman is driving all alone--and the evil guy working at the gas station (George Zucco) takes advantage of that. He calls ahead to Dr. Marlowe (Bela Lugosi) and informs him that she is headed his way and Marlowe's henchmen (one of which is John Carradine) set a trap to capture her. Why? Because Marlowe hopes to use voodoo to somehow re-animate his dead wife! After five of these ladies vanish, there are finally some clues--and they point to Marlowe and his gang of weirdos. This movie is jam-packed with silly mumbo jumbo and silliness. However, and this is important, it never takes itself too seriously and the ending really made me smile. While this film will never earn any high praise from anyone who is sane, it is quite enjoyable escapism despite its many deficiencies.

"I'd turn back if I were you", Bert Lahr says in "The Wizard of Oz". The poor women in this would be better off to remember that line as they are carried off by John Carradine for mad scientist Bela Lugosi's nefarious plans. Basically a re-tread of "The Corpse Vanishes", this has bizarre witch doctor Lugosi utilizing voodoo with young women to bring his long dead wife back to life rather than an aged Elizabeth Bathory type harping at Lugosi to return her to her youthful state in that 1942 cult classic. This has the benefit of director William Beaudine, the Ed Wood of the 40's, who directed hundreds of features and shorts from the silent era through the 1950's. Beaudine could take the worst script and turn it into something fairly entertaining, which is precisely what happens here. Lugosi, the lead boogie man in this, is surrounded by fellow spooksters John Carradine and George Zucco. The use of a television like device to see what's going on outside Lugosi's lair is just one of the ingenious plot points that helps you forgive the lameness of the story. There's a wonderful twist in the very last minutes of the film that is hysterically funny.