ISLAND OF THE DOOMED 1967

Mad Scientist With a Green Thumb Cameron Mitchell Hangs Out On a Deserted Island Growing Blood Sucking Plants In a Creepy Old Villa While Disposing Of Pesky Visitors !!

"What Was The Terrifying Secret Of The Vampire Tree ?"

              AKA Maneater of Hydra / Bloodsuckers / Baron Vampire / La Ilsa De La Muerte

    Under the title MANEATER OF HYDRA (although no one gets eaten) this Spanish/ West German co-production from 1967 had frequent airings on late night television during the 70’s where in the hazy/half-asleep world of local network pre-dawn TV horror it must have made quite an impression on viewers (particularly if you were on the young side).
   Opening with some rather oddball animated credits, this has Cameron Mitchell in a fairly (initially at least ) restrained performance (especially by Cameron Mitchell standards) playing Baron Weser who as botanist living in a large villa on a secluded island has been experimenting with crossbreeding carnivore plants. The end result is a large bloodsucking tree that shoots appendages out and attached itself to unwary victims in the form of some unlucky tourists who happen to drop by for a visit.

   Forgoing a row of nice shiny tour buses a group of tourists decide instead on what looks to be a WWII German staff car driven by Ricardo Valle (Morpho from THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF) who invites them to enjoy the wonderful botanical delights on Baron Weser’s private island (hint.. hint). The group includes a bickering couple in the form of older husband James Robinson (Rolf Van Nauckhoff) and his younger and perpetually horny younger wife Cora (Kais Fischer)-or as she’s called here Mrs. Robinson (!) and there’s love interest in the person of nominal hunky hero type David (spaghetti western star George Martin) & probable future bloodsucking tree victim Beth (Elisa Montés). Plus there’s noisy obnoxious Myrtle Callahan (Matilde Samperdo - who as dubbed here sounds like Fran Drescher’s mother) and geeky botanist Prof. Julius Demerist (from the University of Michigan !) as played by Herman Nehlsen.

    Upon arrival on the island the Baron shows off his weird (and hungry) plant collection and the group settles into their expected stereotypes. Cora starts prowling around for any available man - including the driver (with whom she was playing footsie in the car earlier). Unfortunately for her (and unbeknownst) by this time he's become monster tree fodder. Moving on to the Baron he rebuffs her and she sulks back to her room to become the next item on the buffet. Also lurking about is the baron's creepy manservant Baldi, who's twin brother was found did earlier in the movie and serves the purpose of a red herring for the plot.
    Beth and David start to click and the nosy botanist begins to ask to many questions of the baron's gardening practices which necessitates Cameron taking him out via a rather nifty poisonous Indian God statue. All the while the baron slowly becomes more and more unhinged, slowly turning into the wonderful scenery chewing Cameron Mitchell that we all know and love. The films climax is truly mind boggling complete with great geysers of tree blood & axe fighting in a thunderstorm while the heroine struggles in the clutches of the monster tree (and Cameron going way off the deep end).

  To the movies credit the attacks are all shown from from a POV shot that keeps the identity and look of the monster unknown until the climax and there is some beautiful lightning and photography used. The monster tree considering the budget restraints has a great design, looking like a monstrous cousin to Little Shoppe of Horror's Audrey and the close-ups of its clear blood sucking feeders and wildly flailing appendages look like something out of Lovecraft.

   Directed by American Mel Welles (LADY FRANKENSTEIN - here working under the pseudonym  Ernst von Theumer), the film has a great atmosphere about it and a surprisng amount of blood  & gory make-up for the time. As a matter of  fact Welles did appear in Roger Corman's original LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS from 1960 and even help direct a bit of it. It's a shame there isn't a better copy of it legitimately available as in spite of its rather ludicrous premise (but hey, that's why we love these) its a neat little example of Euro horror. It's available on one of those Shout Factory Elvira double packs with the superb The House That Screamed. Unfortunately its pretty ugly looking, with a cropped and edited for television print (complete with fade-outs every 10 min for the Elvira interruptions). However a nice looking widescreen print has recently surfaced (Thanks Cinemageddon !), but hopefully one day we'll get a nice legit release.

Hicksploitation Movie Night # 4 - Texas Lightning 1981

   
    A pretty deranged performance from Cameron Mitchell is the main feature of this Gary Graver directed (which he also wrote  & shot) effort from 1981. Graver was a pretty busy guy in the 70's & 80's , serving as DP on tons of low budget exploitation fare while at the same time directing bunches of porn movies (right in the midst of making this) - which makes you wonder if this kinda mainstream cast was aware of that.  After making Moonshine Express in 1977 (see earlier post) , it looks like Maureen McCormick wanted to to  break out even more from The Brady Bunch - so she here she is in a slightly more sleazier role.
   Cameron Mitchell plays Karl Stover who believing that his son Buddy Owen (played by Mitchell's real life son Cameron Jr.) isn't turning out to be quite the man he should be decides to take him out for a weekend of hunting. After a rather awkward good bye to Mrs. Stover (Hope Holiday), where its not too subtly referenced that maybe there's something more to Buddy and Moms relationship, the guys head out.  Along for the ride are Karl's buddies Frank Whitman (veteran character actor Peter Jason) and Leonard Simpson (J.L. Clark). On the way there in Leonard's monster truck they throw empty beer cans out the window and chew twinkies with their mouth open.

    After arriving and a drunken day of hunting rabbits & squirrels (and insulting a black policeman) the men don their satin cowboy shirts and head off to local country & western bar for some fun and urban cowboy action. This bar sequence lasts WAY too long and might be the result of the producers making Graver go back and shot more scenes to make the movie a little funnier (and to lose the downbeat ending - more on that later).  At the bar there is a wet t-shirt contest (with Graver playing the MC), which also features a cameo appearance by veteran porn actress Lisa De Leeuw (who not surprisingly wins the contest). At the bar Buddy meets a waitress named Fay (McCormick) and later they head back to Buddy's motel room. Turns out Fay's a kind of hustler as she cons Buddy out of $20.00 before they hit the hay. Their bliss is soon interrupted by the two drunken idiots Frank & Leonard who attack Fay, while Buddy runs off to his dad.

   They then head to the wild for more drunken hunting (Frank throws beans all over Leonard for a bit of comic relief). Buddy now starts acting strangely - silently glaring, loading his gun, strapping on a knife and looking likes he's all ready to go Lord of the Flies on the rest of the group.  Its at this point that movie loses whatever tension it was building toward. Graver had filmed this sequence originally with Buddy finally snapping and blasting one (or more) Dad's redneck buddies, instead this entire sequence was re-shot and other scenes added to lighten the movie up a little bit - as can be seen in the poster design. In this the released ending Buddy fires a few shots into the ground to scare everybody, confronts his dad and then heads back to the bar to apologize to Fay (who's sitting alone on the stage sing a C&W song - shades of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour).

   Even with the compromised ending the whole movie still has a slightly grimy vibe to it. There was a fair amount of publicity around this at the time for McCormick's alleged nude scene (which never really happens - thanks to a strategically placed hand).  Graver's original version has been rumored to have appeared on video in Europe, but all we have for now is the "happy" version on an OOP DVD (which I think was just a copy of the old Media VHS).