Review: Blood Creature

A shipwrecked American sailor (Richard Derr) uncovers ghastly scientific experiments being carried out on a tropical island by mad scientist Francis Lederer. Greta Thyssen plays the doctor’s wife who develops feelings for the new island inhabitant and vice versa.

 

Cheap 1959 Filipino mad scientist film from director Gerry de Leon (“Brides of Blood”, “Women in Cages”) and screenwriter Harry Paul Harber (mostly an actor, this was his final feature film) actually isn’t worthless. The basic plot is tried and true – an unofficial adaptation of “The Island of Dr. Moreau”, and it deserves credit for being the first ever Filipino horror film. The director actually offers up some decent creepy atmosphere from time to time, which is commendable for this kind of thing and this kind of budget. There’s also a solid turn by veteran character actor Francis Lederer as the doctor. The other performances are a bit stiff and the material is rather thin, I also had the added debit of watching an absolutely dreadful, dark print. It made it a bit extra hard to really become involved in what I was watching, and what I was watching was already second-rate material. Occasionally wonky editing doesn’t help, either.

 

I can’t really recommend the film, but I will say that it was a bit better than I was expecting from the uber-generic title. In a way, it probably would’ve been more fun if it were actually worse, it’s a C-grade film instead of a Z-grade film. That means it kinda falls into the netherworld of being neither good enough nor bad enough to entirely please anyone. However, for the seriously undemanding you could do a lot worse. It’s a nice try at something eerie, I’ll give it that.  

 

Rating: C+

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