PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
Though
in 1956 Edward L. Cahn directed one of the better B-monster-flicks of
the decade in THE SHE CREATURE, his execution of VOODOO WOMAN the
next year makes it seem likely that Lou Rusoff’s script did all the
heavy lifting. This time, the writing-team of Russell Bender and V.I.
Voss whipped out a knock-off of SHE CREATURE, even to the extent of
re-using two of the earlier film's main actors, and Cahn did nothing more than crank
the camera and cash his check.
Marla
English, the former She Creature, plays the titular “Voodoo Woman,” though she starts out as Marilyn, a hard broad from the States. She
and her equally crooked boyfriend somehow wind up in Africa, and like
hundreds of scheming white people before them, they’re on the hunt
for tribal gold. However, the primitive African tribe just happens to
have its own resident mad scientist. In SHE CREATURE, Chester Morris
played the over-reaching researcher, while Tom Conway essayed a
support-role. This time out, Conway gets the dubious privilege of
playing the guy who brings out the monster in the maiden. However,
whereas Morris’ Doctor Lombardi justified his project in terms of
evolution and reincarnation, Conway’s Doctor Gerald quests after
his “voodoo woman” because—well, the script says that’s what
he does.
For
a production like this, no experienced viewer really expects the
script to be accurate about voodoo, which only has very indirect
roots in African religious practices. But one would think that even
hacks trying to invoke “voodoo” for its buzzword value would come
up with some supernatural menace that aligned with popular
conceptions of the religion, even transplanted to Africa. Bender and
Voss simply conjure up a tribe who happen to have some ritual that
creates an invulnerable monster-woman, whose presence is somehow linked to a smoking
hole in the ground. There’s no telling what Gerald thinks he’s
going to do with this superwoman once he gets her, but he soon finds
that the native women just don’t suit his vague purposes. He
doesn’t seem to consider his wife as a possible subject, though
there’s no love lost between them any more. Instead, when the two
thieves show up, dragging along a local guide (Mike Connors) with them, Gerald decides
that he’ll use Marilyn’s lust for gold to tempt her into becoming
his experimental subject. She consents, and becomes a big black
monster who eventually destroys the hubristic heel just as the She
Creature killed her evil master. With the bad people out of the way,
Gerald’s wife gets a chance at new romance with Connors’ noble
guide.
The
talky script insures that there’s nearly no action to get in the
way, and though Conway and Connors submit decent performances of
their crappy characters, the movie’s only saving grace is English’s
portrait of hard-bitten dame Marilyn.
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