Chiller Carnival of Blood and The Blood-O-Rama Shock Festival

Someone had asked me a question as to if the Blood Island Films ever got another run on 42^nd Street. I had to ponder this a bit. Independent International’s honcho, Sam Sherman, had ties to Hemisphere Pictures through Kane W. Lynn. Lynn had been shooting WWII pictures as there was a lot of equipment left in the Philippines after the war. Sam told Kane to ditch the war movies and make horror movies. In 1959, Lynn would produce what would be the first Blood Island movie, Terror is a Man. This film was basically The Island of Lost Souls with just one creature.

Sam distributed the film in the States as Blood Creature. Directed by established director, Gerry De Leon, it was co directed by newcomer and De Leon protégé, Eddie Romero. Their second feature was Brides of Blood ( 1968), starring former AIP Beach Party star John Ashley, Kent Taylor, and Beverly Hills, you remember her, right? I mean, she was in the, oh fuck, never mind. Bald and burly Bruno Punzalan is a henchman in all three Blood Island films. Here he is as Goro. 

Jim Farrell ( Ashley) and Dr. Henderson ( Taylor) are on the island to study the effects of radiation on the local fauna and flora. They find that the natives are sacrificing virgins to a horrible creature. The virgins are tied to poles, and the grunting beast rapes and dismembers them. This doesn’t sit right for Farrell as he got chummy with one of the local girls. 

When she is chosen, Farrell scares off the creature with a flare gun. There are also man-eating trees, killer moths, and the monster looks like the Michelin Man on steroids. Plenty of severed heads and body parts for all. The creature is actually their host on the island, Don Esteban.

It seems when night falls, everything changes to deadly on the island. Esteban morphs into this creature who grunts sounds like people having bad sex. Finally, the creature is killed, and Blood Island returns to ‘normal.”

Mad Doctor of Blood Island 1968 was also co directed by De Leon and Romero. John Ashley is back , this time as Doctor Bill Foster. Angelique Pettyjohn ( Star Trek) is Sheila Willard, who is looking for her father. Another passenger on the ship to the island is Carlos, whose father, Don Ramon, had passed away, and he wants his mother to leave the island.
 Arriving on the island, Sheila finds her father is a drunk. Willard gets tanked and goes into the dangerous jungle. Carlos is welcomed by a former friend, Marla, who promises to ‘rekindle” their friendship. Mrs. Lopez introduces Carlos to Doctor Lorca ( Ronald Remy), who she is screwing. I forgot to mention that before the credits rolled, you had to take an oath and drink the packet of green blood ( sugar water) you were given . Also, a native girl is ripped up by a horrible creature. Bruno Punzalan is Razak, Lorca’s henchman. 

The late Don Ramón was treated by Lorca for a rare blood disease. Marla was having an affair with Don Ramón. Lorca was giving Don Ramón chlorophyll treatments, which had bad side effects. Don Ramón became a horrible creature and escaped into the jungle. There he kept busy playing practical “jokes” on anyone seeking him out. The gore is extreme here. A young couple is torn to pieces. Severed limbs and entrails are strewn about.
 Carlos has his father’s grave exhumed, but no Don Ramón, just a random cobra. Marla breaks down muttering, “ I knew he was alive.” Don Ramón takes this moment to get into the house and tear his former wife to pieces. This is the most grotesque scene in the film. Carlos walks in on this and is knocked out. Don Ramón recognizes him and backs off from a death blow. Marla tracks the monster down, who is oddly subservient to her. Marla lets him into Lorca’s laboratory, and he mauls Lorca . Marla, who obviously lost her mind, sets the place on fire. 

Foster, Sheila, and Carlos leave the island on a tramp steamer. A green hand emerges from under a pile of canvas, leaving this open for a sequel. Beside the ample gore and violence, we get a softcore sex scene between Ashley and Pettyjohn. There is more nudity with some hot Filipino ladies. Pettyjohn wound up doing three hardcore porn films when she fell on hard times.

Beast of Blood 1970 picked up where the last film left off. Bill Foster is talking to the ship’s captain when they hear a wet thud. Don Ramón has stowed away and is dicing up crew members with an axe. Split skulls and caved-in chests abound. Foster battles the raging beast, but the ship catches fire and explodes. Foster is clinging to a piece of the wreckage. 

Don Ramon is washed up on shore and heads into the jungle as the credits roll. Severin Films found a longer version of this film where we follow him into the jungle. Ashley is back as Bill Foster, and he’s returning to the island with nosey reporter, Myra ( Celeste Yarnell) . Lorca is now played by Eddie Garcia, whose face is burned from the previous film. Razack also survived and nursed Lorca back to health.

Foster is told the Green Ones have returned, and villagers are being taken. Well, let me cut to the chase here, as I’ve covered these before. Lorca survived, found a wounded Don Ramon, and put his head in a jar. Lorca wants to transplant a new head on Don Ramon’s body. This transplant angle was played up heavily in radio spots. It was around the time of the first heart transplant, so they were capitalizing on it. Lorca keeps trying to talk to the severed head. Don Ramon only speaks when Lorca leaves the room.  

 Myra is captured and taken to Lorca’s jungle fortress. Foster is lured in, but he has a group of villagers and sailors ready to attack at dawn. Lorca tells Foster that his original assessment of Lorca is correct. “ I’m madder than ever,” Lorca tells him.  Foster’s group attacks in an almost Wild Bunch-inspired shoot-out. Lorca is preparing to leave, but Don Ramon has gained telepathic control of his body, and it breaks loose. 

The headless body beats Lorca bloody as the head cackles, “ We can talk now, Lorca. Talk to me, Lorca. “ Then Lorca’s head is crushed by the creature dropping a machine on it. The head looks on in terror as the place burns up. Kane W. Lynn wanted another film, Horrors of Blood Island. But John Ashley had been in touch with Roger Corman and told him how cheap it was to film there. Ashley and Eddie Romero went to Corman’s New World Pictures as producer and director.

Lynn needed a movie, so Sam Sherman used hack director, Al Adamson, to make Brain of Blood. It had great poster art by Gray Morrow. The poster was better than the actual movie. Sherman sold all four films to network television under different titles and heavily edited. Brides of Blood became Island of Living Horror.

Mad Doctor of Blood Island became Tomb of the Living Dead. Beast of Blood became Beast of the Dead, and Brain of Blood became The Creature’s Revenge.

Now I had only seen Beast of Blood in a theater; the other two I missed. So around 1970, I’m at Morris Plains Drive-In, and the preview for the next week’s show is The Chiller Carnival of Blood. The trailer promised 5 hours of more blood than you’ve ever seen before. No actual movies were mentioned, but clips were shown, and they included Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Brides of Blood, and others. “ Blood Doctor, Blood Brides, Blood Demon, and Blood Fiend.”

So okay, I’m in, but in reality, I was in for a screwing. Morris Plains was about an hour from where I lived. Plus it was me and two friends, Jimmy and Ian, and we needed alcohol. We were underage, so being that I was the oldest looking, I’d go buy wine. The trick was that if you brought a bottle of Boone’s Farm or another “pop” wine, you’d get proofed. But if you got a bottle of Chiante or Matus, you would get away with it. Plus we’d cut these with 7UP. So mistake # one was letting Jimmy buy the hootch. He got proofed, so we had to find another liquor store. Now I went in and got away with it.

So we get to the Drive-In and the first movie, Brides of Blood, was ending. Okay, we still have three to go. Blood Creature is next. Jimmy mutters, “ I’ve seen this, but something isn’t right about it.” Yeah, it was on Chiller Theater two weeks ago as Terror is a Man. Now I’m pissed, this was obviously the blood doctor. So we rag on it until Blood Fiend came on. 

Now Ian perks up. “ Didn’t we see this a couple of months ago at your house real late ?” I thought for a minute, “ Yeah, it was Theater of Death, a 1967 film with Christopher Lee. Now I’m really pissed and need more wine. Theater of Death isn’t a bad film, but I really didn’t need to see it again.” 

 Last up is Blood Demon, which was really Torture Chamber of Doctor Sadism ,another Chi-Lee film from 1967. OK, now I’m done in and thankful for weed and wine to get through this. Sherman would try this again with The Blood O Rama Shock Festival . No thanks, you got me once.

In 1971, I see an ad for Beast of the Yellow Night and The Creature with the Blue Hand. I also see that Beast stars John Ashley and is directed by Eddie Romero. Could this be another Blood Island film? Of course, I’m in. So it’s playing at The Anthony Wayne Drive-In in flood-prone Wayne, NJ. Great idea putting a drive-in close to a river that always floods. 

Anyway, the print they ran was dark. It wasn’t Blood Island, it was way different, but then, I didn’t know how different. My 18-year-old mentality wanted blood and guts. Oh, this film had all that, but as I said, the print was dark. The co feature, Creature with the Blue Hand, was a 1967 West German import with Klaus Kinski as twin brothers. Supposedly, this film was leased from Sam Sherman. Sherman took the film, shot some zombie scenes in South Jersey, and released it as The Bloody Dead. It was on a DVD, and the Creature with the Blue Hand was the co feature. Seriously, WTF?

Anyway, Blue Hand had a razor-fingered killer that predated Freddy Krueger by 17 years. Technically, The Bat ( 1959) had the first razor-fingered killer. Gotta keep on top of these pertinent facts. So The Beast of the Yellow Night got a DVD release by Retromedia, then a Blu-ray by VCI. So it was time for me to rediscover something I originally thought sucked, that is really quite good. Eddie Romero wrote this, and it’s more cerebral than his previous work.

Set in the Philippines at the end of WWII, degenerate traitor, rapist, and murderer( hell of a pedigree, right ?), Joe Langdon ( John Ashley) is running from the authorities. Wounded and starving ,he falls to the jungle floor. A voice calls to him. He looks up and sees a native with a basket. It’s really Satan ( Vic Diaz), and Langdon sells his soul for a bag of rotting meat. Fast forward ,a body Langdon possessed is being buried. Satan is present in a suit. Langdon asks to be left alone. Satan chastises him, saying, “ I have others to deal with too.”

Langdon takes over a body of a badly disfigured businessman , Phillip Rogers, who is dying. His wife, Julia, Mary Wilcox, takes him home after the doctor in charge suddenly dies of a heart attack. Julia may have been having an affair with his brother, Earl ( Ken Metcalfe) . Langdon beds his wife in a softcore sex scene. Langdon is having doubts about the last 20 years. Satan shows up in another suit . He reminds Langdon that he owns him and causes one of his kidneys to almost burst.

Langdon walks the streets and stops by a church. He ponders going in, but doubles over in pain. An old man tries to help him, but Langdon has changed into a clawed, fanged beast that rips the guy apart and eats his entrails. The make-up is similar to 1957’s The Vampire but is more extreme. 

Detective Campo ( Eddie Garcia) investigates the murder. 

He is shocked when he finds out that parts of the victim were eaten. The police suspect something weird is going on. Langdon locks himself in a room with barred windows. He starts to change and bends the bars to escape. He finds a hooker cruising for men and rips her throat out. Cornered by the police and some locals, he goes berserk using his clawed hands to rip people apart. He hides in a warehouse occupied by a blind old man. The man tells Langdon that he has nothing to fear from him. 

Langdon wakes up in human form. He finds that his “host” was the most feared bandit in the area. He had a bloody reign of terror until he went blind. They argue about saving souls. Langdon laughed at him, saying nothing could save the man’s blood-soaked soul. Langdon leaves; his clothing is soaked in blood. Langdon is arrested and tossed in a cell. Satan shows up as a prison guard. He tells Langdon that even though he orchestrated the change, now it will be on Langdon’s head for fucking with him and breaking his deal. Detective Santos, who was one of the men hunting Langdon during the war, recognizes him.

They contact the American Embassy for Langdon’s records. Langdon would be an old man if he were still alive. With no evidence , Langdon is released. But an angry crowd has gathered outside the police station. One of the men sneaks up on Langdon and stabs him with a large knife. It has no effect. Langdon just walks away. Back home, Langdon is in bed with Julia when he changes. He returns to the warehouse where the blind man is. After Langdon changes back, the man tells him that he will take him to a safe place.

They leave town, but come to a roadblock manned by police and soldiers. The two run into the fields. They are told to surrender, but won’t . After the police open fire, Langdon agrees to surrender. But the blind man runs and is gunned down. Langdon changes and decimates the soldiers. The dying man asks Campo to take him to Langdon. Langdon stops the slaughter and hovers over his only friend. “ Pray for me, Langdon,” the man begs. Langdon, Langdon shakes his head, but gives into his dying friend’s request.

The man dies holding Langdon’s hand. Langdon looks to Campos , Campos shoots him in the heart. Langdon morphs back to his original form, an old man. The curse is broken. Satan mutters some words as the credits roll. This was a real departure from the outrageous Blood Island films. This has a lot more food for thought than the previous films. 

This would be the first in a series of films produced by John Ashley and directed by Eddie Romero. 

The real surprise here is Vic Diaz. Usually cast as a fat, oily bad guy, Vic could act and he proves it here. He is great as Satan and plays it low-keyed. He just ‘shows up” to further torment Langdon. There must be a provision in the Filipino film handbook stating that Vic should be in every movie filmed there. And he pretty much is. He showed up , unaccredited , in a handful of films. 

Creature with the Blue Hand ( 1967) was a West German film starring Klaus Kinski as twin brothers. It was based on the writing of Edgar Wallace. One is confined to a mental institution. He escapes. Now it’s hard to keep track of which brother is which. Very few of these films got a theatrical release here. Most wound up as filler on real late-night TV. This film has all the stuff that made these films cool: swirling mists, an old castle with secret doors, a mad doctor, switchblades, rats , snakes, and a hooded. Razor fingered killer known to Scotland Yard as The Blue Hand. 

Lots of plot twists and turns. Finally, the killer and the evil twin are exposed. This film could really use the Blu-ray treatment. All of these films were a shitload of fun, and it was great seeing them in theaters and drive-ins. Nice to see that some drive-ins are making a comeback so younger fans can get that experience.