Bad Mad Scientist in Jungle B-Movie awaits your scornNovember 9, 2002 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Voodoo Woman" is the story of a woman who has voodoo done to her rather than being about a woman who does voodoo. Not that this makes a whit of difference in the end is you stumble across this bad B-movie from 1957 which is just begging for MST3K treatment. Deep in the jungles of Africa Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is living with a voodoo tribe where he is trying to use voodoo and modern science to create an army of monsters with which to conquer the world. When a group of treasure seekers stumble onto the camp. the good doctor decides that Marilyn Blanchard (Marla English) should benefit from his next experiment. You see, it seems that voodoo is like hypnotism and Gerard cannot make the native girl (Jean Davis) he injected with his serum do things she would not have done when her mind is her own. Fortunately Marilyn has already killed somebody in this movie (and he did not even have to beg) so she should be an improvement. Besides, the doctor's wife Susan (Mary Ellen Kay), thinks he is insane. No love there anymore it seems and the whole idea is to create creatures who will obey the doctor's every whim. Experimenting on these women must be practice, for when he creates his army of, one would assume, MALE zombies. Besides, Marilyn is not only evil, but stupid. The doctor talks her into going under the voodoo spell to become the tribe's high priestess at which point she would be able to take all their gold away (hey, SHE is the one that thinks this makes sense).
"Voodoo Woman" is directed by Edward L. Cahn, who had already brought us "Creature with an Atom Brain" and was gearing up for "Invasion of the Saucer Men" and " It! The Terror From Beyond Space." Screenplay credit goes to Russ Bender and V.I. Voss; my suspicion is the latter gets the blame for the really, really dreadful dialogue as this film is Voss' sole credit. "Voodoo Woman" is clearly a film that is so jaw droppingly bad it is enjoyable as a bad film and I appreciated the ending where the natives decide they have had enough of this nonsense. Plus you have Mike "Touch" Connors as the manly Ted Bronson, still ten years away from fame on the tube as "Mannix." I have discovered this film was remade as "Curse of the Swamp Creature" in 1966 with John Agar, but this time set in the swamps of Texas (?). Finally, the monster in this film is the same one from Cahn's 1957 film "The She Creature," except this time it is wearing a blonde wig. You just cannot make this stuff up, boys and girls.
