Shortly after the Beach Party cycle of films petered out, AIP regular John Ashley went to the Philippines to produce with Eddie Romero a handful of exploitation films, of which this is the best known. It is a little disconcerting to see the arch in his career at this point. All those beach party and hot rod flicks that John did for Mr. Arkoff were admirably quaint, yet seem like Kubrick compared to the standard production values of these films.
Reference books all mention how awful these movies are, yet for some they are so putrid that they create a strange kind of attraction. But these films are nonetheless interesting for their bewildering atmosphere: these sweaty, tinny opuses seem to be made in the spirit of 40's B-pictures with liberal amounts of cheap 60's gore. This second entry in the "Blood Island" series (following BRIDES OF BLOOD, which is even worse) concerns the Chlorophyll Monster running amok, scaring natives, and putting viewers to sleep. As dreadful as these spate of Filipino exploitation films are, during their proliferation in the 1960's and 70's, it was always interesting to see who popped up in them. This time, Ashley's co-star is the lovely Angelique Pettyjohn, whom Trekkies would remember from the "Gamesters of Triskelion" episode, and who had yet to embark on a career of Triple X features such as TITILLATION.
Romero's monster is so frightening that the height of suspense comes when the creature just stands there and stands there for the longest time when it is cornering somebody. I haven't seen this deadening rot in over 12 years, yet for some reason I am getting a craving to see it all over again. Are we that fed up with the mainstream, that we masochistically seek out films that we know are pieces of painfully inept tedium just to escape some piece of Hollywood mediocrity? Is it more important to trudge through the Grade Z movie universe to find that one moment that actually works or exhibits some whisper of technical competence, than to be de-sensitized by any standard commercial fare where production values are taken for granted? Is it just some piece of lost youth we are attempting to regain in these movie experiences no matter what the price of disappointment? I don't know, but thanks to the DVD revolution, someone is unearthing these curious pictures all over again, as it is well nigh impossible to find this stuff on VHS anymore, and the barrel scrapings of the late show are now lined with infomercials for mouthy psychics and TimeLife books. At least its sequel BEAST OF BLOOD is marginally better.
