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| Oakland Tribune - February 25, 1970 |
Bryan Senn, in his entertaining and compulsively readable "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills!" Horror and Science Fiction Double Features, 1955 - 1974, offered this slam-dunk description of this bizarro drive-in double-feature: "Filipino jungle wackiness meets German Gothic craziness in this unlikely but entertaining double-bill from Hemisphere Pictures, their second of three terror tandems." [P.313]
Mad Doctor of Blood Island is the middle film in a "Blood Island" trilogy. The father of one of my oldest friends knew star John Ashley, back in the day. They were schoolmates. This led to a humorous anecdote. At a function of some kind, my friend's father was talking with a filipino woman and John Ashley was mentioned. The woman said Ashley was considered to be, "The Marlon Brando of Filipino cinema." My friend's father commented that was an admirable accomplishment. The woman smiled and told him, "You have not seen Filipino cinema!"
Ouch.
Blood Demon, also known as either The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism of The Castle of the Walking Dead, appears to have been the first gothic horror film to be made in Germany since the end of World War II.
The production made up for lost time, it seems, by cramming the film with, as Senn writes, "horror hokum by the coffin-full," making it "a tasty piece of ghoulish eye candy."[P.314] Just as long as you don't try to take it the least bit seriously, that is.
Critic and one time TV Horror Host John Stanley, in Revenge of the Creature Features Movie Guide, agreed, somewhat, stating that, "Good atmosphere and expressionistic settings offset" the weak script and lackluster performance by horror superstar Christopher Lee.
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