hyped garbage

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

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

An uninspired little B-movie, no different from a million others. The only thing which makes this one distinct is the use of a jungle setting, although this is obviously studio bound. The acting is all pretty much standard for a film of this type, the men being macho and the women being inferior. One women is kept in her house to stay out of the way, obviously the '50s values are far removed from today's world. Another woman kills somebody and turns out to be a villain, so I guess the entire female species get a rum deal in this film. Also, one guy comes across as an Indiana Jones-type hero who even gets to use a Molotov cocktail in one amusing scene.In amongst some fairly boring action (typical fight scenes), there is a hilariously awful rubber suited monster running about on the rampage, in fact the monster suit is the same as the one used in THE SHE-CREATURE. Talk about cheap. This film is also pretty racist in the depiction of the jabbering natives who run around and perform their voodoo rituals by cutting the heads off chickens. It's pretty outrageous to watch this stereotypical view. With some low rent action scenes (mainly involving shooting), an absurd, rarely seen monster and lots of overheated dialogue, this is pretty much your typical kind of '50s exploitation; there are better and there are worse. It's definitely nothing to get excited about.

Dismal cheapie from AIP that stars a rough-looking Tom Conway as a mad scientist in the jungle using voodoo to turn women into monsters. It's a mostly dull affair with a few campy moments that are worth some laughs. But these are sadly few and far between. Most of the time it's just boring. Conway has seen better days. He looks sickly here. But he still (over)acts his pants off, which is appreciated. Marla English makes for a fun bitch; she's easily the highlight of the movie. Mike Connors is the "hero" who exists just to give the mad scientist's put-upon wife (Mary Ellen Kay) a stud to walk into the sunset with. The monster suit for the 'voodoo woman' is the same as the suit from The She-Creature with some minor changes. She-Creature is a much more fun movie, though. Also the drum beat played throughout sounds a bit like the opening to Sympathy for the Devil.

Not going to mince words: Eddie Cahn's "Voodoo Woman" is terrible. Tom Conway deserved better than this, but when the roles aren't there and you need work then these kinds of films are what you're stuck with. He's a mad doc in voodoo tribe trying to use their magic with his science in the hopes of creating a monster to be shown to those colleagues who might have found his theories balderdash. Mary Ellen Kay is the pretty, blond wife trapped in a home, with posted tribal guard wielding a mean spear. Marla English is greedy and bad, hoping to gain gold possibly found at the tribe of Martin Wilkins' priest, Chaka. Her fiancé, Norman Willis, is equally repellent. Following Marla, the two commission Mike Connors as knowledgeable guide to lead them to the tribe, but the triangle deteriorates as they get closer to their destination. Conway must manipulate the tribe and keep his standing among them respected so they won't turn on him. Dealing with the tribe gradually becomes more and more difficult. Conway's mad dream might see reality when he meets Marla. Willis strangles a tribal girl he seemingly was trying to sexually assault which gets him in deep trouble. Meanwhile Connors meets Kay, the two planning escape. Marla is to be turned into the monster (documented to be a costume held over from She Creature) by Conway but, of course, that goes awry. Conway didn't age well due to his alcoholism, and this film is so far distant from the classy pictures he made for Val Lewton a decade earlier. His suave and smooth vocally rich tenor remains his best asset, but the role he's stuck with, a rotten soul bound and determined to make himself a monster, is no great shakes. Marla kisses and peddles her sexual wares to secure a profit, broke and without any future prospects, owing even a bar tab, needing either Willis or Connors to get her near something valuable... she'll never be confused with a bona fide thespian. Neither will Kay who crashes to her bed and cries into the pillow, overwrought as Conway insists, with the occasional insult or slap to the kisser, she never leave...Conway does like to scare her with what he's doing with the tribe beauty in his basement. Connors is often held at gunpoint or spear, just wanting to leave, eventually joining forces with Kay. The voodoo tribe and their use in horror in the 40s and 50s wouldn't fly today. Predating the cannibal jungle horror of Italian vintage twenty years, films like Voodoo Woman could be seen as a precursor...the ways of a tribe in the jungle were viewed here as primitive, often easy to deceive and frighten by Conway's cunning scientist, capitalizing on their beliefs and worship practices to benefit his own diabolical agenda. Conway, though, puts himself in danger by having his monster attack the tribe, and places his own body in harm's way. Marla's fate at a pit because she didn't kneel to pick up a gold artifact is laughable. The plot regarding how the monster is manufactured is preposterous.

***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.