CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Voodoo Woman (1957)

Harry West (Norman Willis) finds gold in an idol worshipped by a tribe in Bantalay and hires treasure hunter Marilyn Blanchard (Marla English) to help get it out of the country. Instead, she murders him and gets Ted Bronson (Mike Connors) to help her get deeper into the jungle to recover the gold.

In that very place, Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is trying to make a superbeing and using voodoo and science to keep the natives on his side, as well as his wife, Susan (Mary Ellen Kay), who wants to leave. As soon as the mad doctor meets Marilyn, he knows that he’s found the perfect woman to become his dream monster.

The original make-up for the Voodoo Woman was tossed at the last minute, so they just used the suit from The She-Creature. They got rid of the fins, claws and tail, then wrapped the costume up in a sarong, added a new skull mask and threw on a blonde wig.

Producer Alex Gordon attended the Burbank, California, premiere with his fiancée Ruth Gordon. She was so upset by this movie and how cheap it looked that she threw her ring at him. His brother explained to him the realities of working in Hollywood, and years later, she would write some of Gordon’s films like The Bounty KillerRequiem for a Gunfighter and The Underwater City.

Larry Buchanan remade this as an AIP made-for-television film, Curse of the Swamp Creature. This meant that when people said how bad this was, they would have something that many think is even worse. Not me. I love them both.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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