From 1959 to 1971, Filipino filmmakers Eddie Romero and Gerry de León —along with Hemisphere Pictures marketing consultant Samuel M. Sherman—booked flights for drive-in audiences to Blood Island. This dark den of zombies, medical experiments, wanton women and terror would last four movies that fans of exploitation films have obsessed over ever since.

I’ve loved these movies ever since I first discovered them when Severin’s first re-releases came out a few years ago. I was so lucky to see many of them at the drive-in.

Now, Severin is re-releasing all of them – scanned uncut in 4K with improved color and audio plus over 8 combined hours of special features – in a new box set that you can get directly from the Severin Films Webstore.

Terror Is a Man (1959): Call it Blood Creature, Creature from Blood Island, The Gory Creatures, Island of Terror, Gore Creature, or its most well-known title, Terror Is a Man, but what you should really call it is the first of the Blood Island films. These movies, produced by Eddie Romero and Kane W. Lynn, include Brides of Blood, The Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood.  You can also consider The Blood Drinkers a Blood Island movie.

This movie was in theaters for nearly ten years—until 1969, when distributor Sam Sherman re-released it as Blood Creature with a warning bell that alerted the audience to impending gore.

William Fitzgerald (Richard Derr, who was almost The Shadow in a TV pilot that was turned into a movie called The Invisible Avenger) is the lone survivor of a ship that has crashed on Blood Island. Also, there are Dr. Girard (Francis Lederer, whose Simi Hills home is considered a landmark residence), his frustrated wife Frances (Greta Thyssen, who was in three of the Three Stooges shorts and Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers) and his assistant Walter Perrera.

Much like The Island of Dr. Moreau, Girard is making half-man, half-animals like the panther he’s been experimenting on that tends to attack villagers. Of course, the doctor’s wife falls in love with the protagonist, and the beast gets loose and kills all sorts of people, including his creator. But hey — that mummy-like cat-eyed fiend seems to survive at the end, as a small island boy sends him away on a rowboat.

Gorgeous natives. Strong men. Crazy doctors. Werecats in bandages. Blood Island. Indeed, this one has it all.

The Severin release includes extras such as interviews with Samuel M. Sherman, co-director Eddie Romero, Pete Tombs (co-author of Of Immoral Tales), and critic Mark Holcomb, a trailer, and a poster and still gallery.

Brides of Blood (1968): This movie, which was originally known as Island of Living Horror, was rereleased with Count Dracula’s Great Love. The former was retitled Cemetery Girls and the latter was renamed Grave Desires.

Much like all of these Filipino horror films, it’s completely bonkers.

The tropics are the place for three Americans to find, well, complete insanity.

Dr. Paul Henderson, a nuclear scientist investigating nuclear bomb tests, is played by Kent Taylor. He was once a major star, playing the title role in fifty-eight Boston Blackie movies. His name is also half the inspiration for Superman’s alter ego (the other star is Clark Gable).

He’s married to the gorgeous but always ready-to-cuckold Carla, Beverly Powers. Beverly was once the highest-paid exotic dancer in the world before becoming an actress and starring with Elvis in Speedway, Kissin’ Cousins and Viva Las Vegas. She also pretty much played herself in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. After all that acting, she became a minister with The Living Ministry in Maui, Hawaii.

Then there’s Jim Farrell, a young Peace Corps member played by John Ashley. Ashley was an AIP star who appeared in Dragstrip Girl and sang his song “Let Yourself Go Go Go” in Zero Hour! He was also a regular in their beach movies, appearing at Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo, and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

After living in Oklahoma for a while, Ashley produced these movies with Hemisphere Pictures, living in the Philippines for part of the year and helping to create these little bits of madness.

Our protagonists soon learn that Blood Island is cursed. It’s now a place that has been irradiated by nuclear fallout from those bomb tests, with vines that attack people and butterflies that bite. There’s also a beast in the jungle that tears women apart to get off because, hey, why not?

Carla learns that the beast is one of the villagers, Esteban, but it comes at the price of her own life. She’s an early “sex and people who want sex must be destroyed” casualty decades before this type of destruction de rigeur.

Between carnivorous trees eating Carla’s remains and the movie ending in a vast orgy, this is probably unlike any other film you’ve seen before. You can say that about every single film from this studio.

The press book for the movie suggested that all female theatergoers would get the chance to become Brides of Blood and receive a free engagement ring. There was even the idea of giving away fake marriage certificates, but legal concerns prevented that.

Extras on the Severin release include commentary from  Samuel M. Sherman; interviews with co-director Eddie Romero, Sherman and Beverly Powers; the alternate Brides of Blood Island title sequence and a Jungle Fury title card; a teaser; a trailer and a poster and still gallery.

Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969): We’re back ten years after we first got to Blood Island. Eddie Romero and Gerardo de Leon have returned in the directing chair, and this time, they’ve brought even more blood, beasts and boobs than they did in their last effort, Brides of Blood.

This film was syndicated to TV as Tomb of the Living Dead and is also known as The Mad Doctor of Crimson Island because, in some states, like Rhode Island, the word “blood” wasn’t allowed in movie advertising.

After Brides of Blood, John Ashley discovered that the film was so well-received that distributors asked him to make more. He moved to the Philippines and got to work.

The film starts with an initiation, as at some theaters, you are given a packet of green liquid and asked to recite the oath of green blood so that you can watch the unnatural green-blooded ones without fear of contamination. Years later, Sam Sherman said that he came up with this idea, and he got incredibly sick when he drank one of the packets. The film’s other gimmick is rapidly zoomed in and out, like Fulci on speed, whenever a monster appears. That was to cover the harmful special effects, but it made plenty of theatergoers sick. Man — destructive green liquid and frequent pans and zooms. It’s as if they wanted kids to puke!

A woman runs naked through a jungle before a green-skinned monster kills her. Yes, that’s how you start a movie!

Then we meet our heroes, like pathologist Dr. Bill Foster (Ashley), Sheila Willard (Angelique Pettyjohn, who was famously in the Star Trek episode “The Gamesters of Triskelion” and early 80s hardcore films like Titillation, Stalag 69 and Body Talk) and Carlos Lopez (Ronaldo Valdez, who would become the first Filipino Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel).

The ship’s captain, who got them there, tells them how the island is cursed and how its people bleed green blood. Everything falls apart — Sheila’s dad, who she hoped to take home, is now a drunk. And Carlos’ mother refuses to leave, even after the mysterious death of her husband.

It turns out that Dr. Lorca has been experimenting on the natives, who just want to be healthy. Instead, they’re becoming green beasts that murder everything they can. Look out, everyone! I hope you’ve drunk your green blood before this all began!

Angelique Pettyjohn claimed that the love scene with John Ashley was not simulated. Seeing how Severin finally found the uncut film, and I haven’t seen any penetration, I think she’s full of it. But who am I to doubt her?

To make this even better, the American trailer of this is narrated by Brother Theodore!

Extras on the Severin release include commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Howard S. Berger and a second commentary with Samuel M. Sherman; interviews with Pete Tombs, Mark Holcomb and Eddie Romero; a trailer and a poster and still gallery.

Beast of Blood (1970): All good things must end. This is the final of the Blood Island films and the last movie that Eddie Romero would make for Hemisphere Pictures.

As Dr. Bill Foster (John Ashley), Sheila Willard, her father and Carlos Lopez escape from Blood Island, this movie’s Beast gets on board and goes buck wild, killing everyone he can and blowing up the ship. He survives and heads back to the jungle while Dr. Foster spends months recovering. Everyone he knew or loved is now dead.

Of course, he’s going back to Blood Island.

Dr. Lorca (Eddie Garcia), who apparently died at the end of the last movie, is still alive but horribly scarred. He controls the beast, which can live without its head and even talk and control its own body from afar.

This is less of a narrative movie for me and more a collection of magical images, as bodies squirt blood and beasts have swampy faces and make strange noises while their heads rot inside beakers and lab equipment.

To promote this one, which played a double bill with Curse of the Vampires, the producers printed counterfeit 10 bills that folded in half, with the other side revealing a poster for the film. Those fake sawbucks were scattered all around the neighborhoods where this movie played.

Extras on the Severin release include commentary by Samuel M. Sherman, interviews with Celeste Yarnall and Eddie Garcia; a Super 8 digest version; a trailer; a radio spot and a poster and a still gallery.