The monster is appropriately green skinned and looks moderately gruesome. Mad Doctor of Blood Island is relatively tame with respect to its exploitation elements – a few gore scenes with severed heads and spilt intestines. While The Island of Lost Souls was shot studio backlot, the venture to the Philippines and the act of casting Caucasian actors in the leads and Filipino actors as everybody else amplifies this across racial and cultural lines. The Blood Island films make interesting contrast to The Island of Lost Souls, which bought into a symbolic divide that seemed to say that Westerners were venturing outside of civilised norms and into a world where the dividing lines between human and animal, civilised and bestial wildness was breaking down. Most of this is not too different, with the exception of the locations in the tropics and the greater gore and sexual content, from the formula that served most mad scientist films of the 1930s and 40s, or for that matter The Island of Dr Moreau, or perhaps more so its first film version The Island of Lost Souls (1932). Mad Doctor of Blood Island opens with a scene that puts the focus of these films upfront – establishing shots of the jungle, followed by a native girl bathing at a waterfall and then being attacked by a monster and pursued naked through the jungle.
#Mad doctor of blood island soundtrack series#
The mad scientist has created a series of human monsters that proceed to run amok, attacking people (amid much gore), before abducting women and usually the heroine in the climactic scenes (amid much toplessness). Subsequently, Eddie Romero left Hemisphere to make other similar films with The Beast of the Yellow Night (1971), Beyond Atlantis (1973), The Twilight People (1972) and The Woman Hunt (1973).Īll of the Blood Island films run to an extremely interchangeable formula – an American hero (usually played by John Ashley and accompanied by his girlfriend) arrives in the tropics and discovers a mad scientist operating in the jungle or on an island. Independent International then released Mad Doctor of Blood Island with a sensationalistic promotional campaign that turned it into a hit, whereupon the other Blood Island films were pushed together as sequels, with American director Al Adamson also making the subsequent, non-Filipino Brain of Blood (1971), even though only Beast of Blood, featuring a return performance from John Ashley and the character of Dr Lorca, can be considered related (beyond all sharing the title location of the fictional Blood Island).
Gerry De Leon and in particular Eddie Romero promptly turned their attentions to making a string of copies of Terror is a Man with the likes of Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood (1971). Sherman succeeded in turning this into a modest drive-in hit. De Leon and Romero went on to make a series of war movies that gained little attention before Terror is a Man was discovered and brought up by Sam Sherman of the US-based Hemisphere Pictures and its releasing arm Independent International. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau (1896). Gerardo (or Gerry) De Leon and Eddie Romero had earlier made Terror is a Man (1959), an unacknowledged copy of H.G. Also includes an LP-sized insert featuring the lurid front cover illustration.Mad Doctor of Blood Island is one of the key films in the Filipino exploitation cinema movement of the 1970s and early 80s.
#Mad doctor of blood island soundtrack full#
Filipino composer Tito Arevalo's score to the 1969 film Mad Doctor of Blood Island was so good that it was used twice more, once in Beast of Blood, the 1970 finale to Hemisphere Pictures' Blood Island franchise, and again in Brain of Blood, which producer Sherman made with director Al Adamson in 1971! But this was the original and the best, utilizing a full orchestra to inspired effect, particularly on the 'Dance' sequences, which virtually invent the genre 'horror exotica.' Not only have we added as a bonus the truly unhinged radio spot that advertised Mad Doctor of Blood Island, but also the record closes with the 'Oath of Green Blood Intro' to the film, which advised audiences to drink the green 'blood' potion that was distributed as a gimmick before screenings of the movie.
We at Real Gone Music have teamed with Sam to release his favorite scores from his long and illustrious career in film production, each sporting rare publicity stills and a personal note from the man himself. As head of Publicity at Hemisphere Pictures and then founder of Independent-International Pictures Corp., Sam Sherman is truly one of the godfathers of the drive-in / grind house / horror / B-movie genre.
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