Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Aspen Orson
There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.
Mark Honhorst
This is about what you'd expect from a Bela Lugosi vehicle from the mid 1940s. At this point, his career was steadily sliding downhill, but hadn't quite reached rock bottom as he would in the early to mid 50s. This is a low budget Monogram quickie, with nothing particularly exciting or memorable going for it. The plot is predictable and derivative of an earlier, slightly better Lugosi flick- "The Corpse Vanishes". Bela plays a mad doctor (wow, really?) who drains the life out of several young women into the body of his decades dead wife(who happens to possess a stylish 1940s hairdo). He is aided by a Voodoo practicing gas station attendant and two imbecilic henchmen. All is going well until a Hollywood scriptwriter stumbles upon their little operation.While some of the characters and situations are somewhat different from your typical low budget Monogram flick, it's mostly just same ol' same ol'. You've got a creepy house in the middle of nowhere, lots of driving through the woods, and Bela doing what he does best. (or at least most often). To it's credit, the movie does have a decent cast. Bela's great as usual, John Carradine and George Zucco make formidable secondary characters, and this does contain some nice looking ladies, including Louise Currie, who happens to slightly resemble Gillian Anderson of "X Files" fame, at least to me... Also, the set design is decent as well. The finale, which takes place in a cave, springs to mind.But overall, this is just a mediocre 1940s horror flick, clearly only made to make a few bucks, with very little effort on the part of the writer or director.
gavin6942
Dr. Richard Marlowe (Bela Lugosi) uses a combination of voodoo rite and hypnotic suggestion to attempt to revivify his beautiful, but long-dead wife, by transferring the life essences of several hapless young girls he has kidnapped and imprisoned in the dungeon beneath his mansion.While the film's acting is generally not all that great, it is excusable because of the plot (which is decent for the time) and for the presence of Bela Lugosi and John Barrymore. Lugosi is more or less himself (his range is not all that amazing) but it works here.While this is by no means a lost classic, it is a film worth tracking down by fans of Barrymore or Lugosi or those who want to see more of what horror films were like in the low budget 1940s.
OneView
Voodoo Man (1944) is one of nine films Bela Lugosi made for Monogram Films in the early 1940s. Monogram was a producer of B-movies (and some would argue C-movies at the very least), usually shot in under a week with a modicum of style or substance encompassed within their narratives.Some of these films remain quite watchable - Bowery at Midnight (1942) for example has a slight dementia to it due to the multiple plot lines and characters. Voodoo Man is less successful despite a promising cast that includes Lugosi, Carradine and Zucco as well as a zombie-themed plot. However, too much time is spent on the romantic leads who are quite a dull pair (both in plot and performance terms.) Lugosi is good and plays the sentimental angle of trying to resurrect his dead wife with admirable conviction. His partner in crime George Zucco shows admirable restraint in delivering his mumbo jumbo dialogue like it was the most revered Shakespearian verse. In some scenes the terrible Would War I injury to his right hand and arm is evident in his inability to straighten the fingers. John Carradine is stooped and bored throughout but manages to look like a typical stoner decades early as he slowly bangs his bongo drums with a 'far-out' expression on his face.Overall the film is an amusing diversion with lots of little moments hampered by a low budget and unadventurous direction. A must for those with an interest in the classic horror period but can be readily skipped by others.
dbborroughs
Odd ball horror film, I think its a horror film, starring Bela Lugosi as a doctor trying to resurrect his dead ("not in the way you know death") wife. To that end he kidnaps women who pass by his home on the way to Twin Falls. Aided and abetted by legends John Carradine and George Zucco Lugosi is trying to use a weird form of voodoo to bring his lady back. Into the mess comes a screenwriter on his way to get married who turned down a chance to write a movie based on the missing girl cases, but ends up in the middle of things when the cousin of his bride to be goes missing when she disappears after giving him a ride when he ran out of gas. I'm not making it up. Thats not even half the film. Really. As I said at the top I have no idea if this is a horror film or a comedy since much of the dialog seems to have been written with a knowing edge. You have dialog scenes that don't build plot so much as crack wise, the writer and his brides cousin for example. Its a weird sort of film that probably should not be seen any earlier than 2AM on commercial TV, thats neither good not bad but a weird mixture of the two (sort of like its mixing Horror and comedy). Give Monogram credit for turning out a film that kind of predates the madness that Ed Wood set loose upon the world. For lovers of Lugosi and those who like off the wall treasures (especially stuff that feel like a Late Late Late show movie), all others need not apply.