Womaneater / The Woman Eater (1957)
“There’s a tribe in the depths of the Amazon jungle, they’re remnants of the Incas, they have a miracle working juju that can bring the dead back to life.” Incas…so not voodoo, then? Oh well…
The opening quotation is uttered by Doctor Moran (where have I heard that name before?), a role unenthusiastically filled by erstwhile Hollywood star George Coulouris, in the smoking room of The Explorers Club.
Before you can say ‘mumbo jumbo’, Moran is off up the Amazon and witnesses a native drummin’n’dancin ceremony (not Voodoo) in a temple (not a hounfort) in the jungle, where a high priest with snakes (not a bokor) leads the celebrants in chanting random words including ‘Damballah!’ (whoops, the name of the Voodoo serpent spirit) before sacrificing a dusky maiden to a tree monster. Apparently, after each snack said tree oozes a magic sap which can make the dead walk (but not like Haitian zombies).
Then, before you can say ‘five years later’ , Doctor Moran is back in Blighty with his very own magic monster tree ensconced in his secret basement laboratory, along with a seconded evil Amazonian bongo drummer named Tanga (an embarrassingly incompetent performance from one Jimmy Vaughn in his first -and last- film role).
Moran’s quest to reproduce the sappy wonder drug in his lab is not going well, so he needs to abduct an increasing number of shapely girls to feed to the insatiable plant creature. His housekeeper and embittered ex-lover Mrs (Margaret) Santor (whose name is distractingly pronounced by everyone as ‘Mrs Santa’) starts to smell a rat, especially when out-of-work ‘exotic dancer’ Sally (Vera Day) turns up at Moran’s house looking for a job as a housekeeper’s assistant (on the advice of the garage owner who caused her to be fired from the fun fair she was working at).
The same jungle explorer/mad doctor – spurned housekeeper named Margaret– young bimbo – carnivorous plant triangle (or pentangle) was later recycled in Konga in 1961. You can guess what happens next. Eventually.
There are too many treading water scenes as the police keep turning up at Moran’s place with ‘just a few more questions, sir’ , variants of Moran fobbing off Mrs Santa with ‘you’re tired, you need a rest, go to your room’ and the rather bland scenes of the gurning Vaughn/Tanga pushing girls into the clutches of the cheesy plant. Then comes an out of the blue declaration of love for Sally from the old Doc just to nudge the plot into the final act and the long awaited raising the dead scene, which doesn’t quite go as planned. Due to the deception of Tanga and the folks back home, Moran succeeds in reanimating “Only the body….no mind. I’ve failed! Only the body…no brain…still dead…no mind…”
Just like a zombie.
I reviewed it on the bhf board , along with all the Caligaris and Charlie Chans and several hundred other films. All lost forever.
I remember writing about this (after having watched it) on the old BHF Board (sigh, flutter eyelids with hearts on them, swoon). I can't recall what I wrote but it was only a few years ago. That doesn't bode too well. Maybe if I'd seen it in 1972 etc it would have been the best film ever made. Along with MAN WITHOUT A BODY.