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.

Director Nobuo Nakagawa is known for his takes on Japanese folk horror, including Kaidan hebi-onna, Jigoku, Onna Kyuketsuki and Borei Kaibyo Yashiki. This is his adaption of the kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan.

Umbrella maker and would-be samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) wants to marry Oiwa (Katsuko Wakasugi) and stands outside the home of her father Samon, beginning for her hand in marriage. He wants nothing to do with the boy, so he insults him, earning enough of his ire that he and his companion Sato are both killed by the samurai.

Naosuke (Shuntaro Emi) watched the whole thing and agrees to be quite if Iemon tells Oiwa and her sister Sode that their father was murdered by a criminal named Usaburo. He also asks for the samurai’s help in throwing Sode’s fiance,  Yomoshichi (Ryuzaburo Nakamura) to his death.

A year finds Iemon and Oiwa married, as well as her sister and Naosuke. Iemon is already tired of her and wants to move on in both beauty and status, so he hires a masseuse named Takuetsu (Jun Otomo) to seduce his wife, hoping she will give in and he can legally kill her as the result of adultery. Takuetsu fails, but she’s already taken the poison he brought, as her face breaks out in horrible blisters. She tries to kill him but only slashes herself, yet when Iemon returns, he kills the massage man and nails both of the victims to wood and sets it down the river.

That night, Iemon marries Ume (Junko Ikeuchi), the daughter of a rich nobleman. Just as quickly, the ghosts of Oiwa and Takuetsu appear. She finally attacks Iemon, who fights back with his sword, killing his wife and her parents. Hiding in a temple, he’s soon joined by Naosuke, who has also seen the ghosts. Oiwa tells her sister that Yomoschichi lives and together, they plan on revenge.

Iemon takes some of that by killing Naosuke, but when Yomoschichi and Sode arrive, the ghosts have so haunted him that he can’t defend himself. The movie ends on an image of Oiwa holding a child in the afterlife.

This has been filmed many times, but many say that this is the definitive version. It’s certainly bloodier and moodier than you’d expect for a movie made all the way back in 1959.

Past of the Daiei Gothic: Japanese Ghost Stories set from Radiance Films, The Ghost from Yotsuya has the following extras: a interview with filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a visual essay on the history and adaptations of the classic Ghost of Yotsuya story by author Kyoko Hirano, a trailer and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista.

You can purchase this set from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: First Man Into Space was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 13, 1964 at 4:00 p.m.

U. S. Navy Commander Charles “Chuck” Prescott (Marshall Thompson) is worried if his brother Lt. Dan Milton Prescott (Bill Edwards) is the right man to be first into space. He doesn’t follow orders — he went to see his girlfriend instead of doing his post-flight report — and had some issues on his last flight. Now, as he flies an advanced jet into the upper reaches of Earth, he decides to go for it instead of landing.

As the crews examine the wreckage, they find it covered with stone that keeps it from being scanned by all forms of light. Soon, a creature is draining a nurse and cattle of their blood. That used to be Dan. Now, it’s a hulking monster that crashes through doors and stalks women. His brain needs blood because of how it was destroyed by a lack of oxygen and it’s only because of a high altitude chamber that he’s able to say, “I just had to be the first man into space,” before he dies.

Directed at the same time as The Haunted Strangler by Robert Day, this started as a potential AIP movie. When they rejected it, AIP’s Alex Gordon sent it to his brother Richard, who worked with writer Charles F. Vetter and John Croydon, taking parts of another script, Satellite of Blood by Wyott Ordung. This played double features with The Mysterians.

In the stock footage, when you see that jet taking off? That’s Chuck Yeager.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Horrors of the Black Museum was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 3, 1967 at 11:20 p.m.

Producer Herman Cohen was inspired by reading a series of newspaper articles about Scotland Yard’s Black Museum. He got to visit the museum and wrote this with Aben Kandel. Many of the weapons in this — including the binoculars — were based on actual weapons of murder.

Cohen wanted Vincent Price or Orson Welles, but Anglo-Amalgamated pushed for a British actor, so Michael Gough is the main bad guy, Edmond Bancroft. Working with his assistant Rick (Graham Curnow), he’s creating a black museum of his own filled with things that have killed people. He also writes about them in the paper and in books. He’s so known for this that a shop owner (Beatrice Varley) keeps weapons that she gets just for him.

There’s also a serial killer who is murdering people with other strange weapons and every time it happens, Bancroft goes mad and his blood pressure goes to 200/100, which let me tell you as someone who is oCD about testing and retesting my blood pressure would kill you.

Bancroft fights with his lover Joan (June Cunningham), who laughs at him and calls him a cripple. She goes out by herself, gets soused and hits on every man she sees before coming home to have a strange looking man place a guillotine on her bed and chop her head off.

As all that is happening, Rick falls for Angela (Shirley Anne Field) and starts planning to get married. However, he is tied to the crime writer by a dark secret.

Making this even better is the opening, which has hypnotist Emile Franchele and HypnoVista. This was added in the U.S. by American-International Pictures. I don’t know if I could be more excited to watch a movie after the opening.

Directed by Arthur Crabtree, this is a movie that was called “lurid,” “nasty” and “sensationalism without subtlety of characterization, situation or dialog.” Those people were right, right and very wrong.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Great Gila Monster was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 18, 1966 at 1 a.m.

Filmed near Dallas, Texas, this movie was produced by Dallas drive-in theater chain owner Gordon McLendon who wanted his own movies. This was shot back-to-back with The Killer Shrews. Unlike most regional drive-in films, both received national and even foreign distribution.

This movie is also a lie. That’s no Gila Monster. It’s a Mexican Beaded Lizard.

A young couple are pre-arrdvarking as they overlook a ravine when the giant Gila Monster appears and murders them. The rest of the movie is spent with their friends alternatively looking for them and running from the lizard.

If you ever wanted to see a small lizard play with a model train set and then bother some teens as a sock hop, then this is the movie for you.

Luckily, Chase Winstead is on hand, ready to drive nitro-filled hot rod dead center into the monster, blowing it, as they say, up real good.

Ray Kellogg, in addition to the previously mentioned The Killer Shrews, also co-directed The Green Berets. He got to direct this movie in exchange for creating the special effects. It was produced by Ken Curtis, who played Festus on Gunsmoke.

This movie features Don Sullivan (The Monster of Piedras Blancas), French Miss Universe 1957 contestant Lisa Simone (she’s also a Moon Girl in Missile to the Moon), former Sons of the Pioneers member Shug Fisher, Fred Graham (who falls to his death at the beginning of Vertigo) and local disc jockey Ken Knox, who helped pick the music for the movie.

You download it from the Internet Archive. There’s also a colorized version on Tubi. You can also watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version on  Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Attack of the Giant Leeches was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, December 5, 1964 at 1 a.m. and Saturday, July 3, 1965 at 1:00 a.m.

Gene Corman broke into the film industry before his brother Roger, working as an agent before becoming vice president of MCA, representing such clients as Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, Richard Conte, Harry Belafonte and Ray Milland.

By the late 50’s, he moved to produce his own films before starting his own producing unit at MGM. and then becoming vice-president of 20th Century Fox Television.

This film is directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who also created Night of the Blood Beast and Sssssss. It was written by Leo Gordon, who had hundreds of roles as an actor, as well as being the author of movies like The Wasp Woman, The Cry Baby Killer and Hot Car Girl.

Did you know that there are larger than human intelligent leeches that live in the Florida Everglades? Yep. There sure are.

Those leeches love nothing more than dragging human beings down into their underwater caves and slowly feeding off their blood.

Liz Walker (Yvette Vickers, who was Playboy‘s July 1959 Playmate of the Month in a centerfold that was photographed by Russ Meyer; she’s also the girl who starts all the trouble by cheating with the husband of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) is the first victim. Again, she plays a loose woman who is cheating on her husband, so she and her new man must pay.

Game warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark, who was Dick Malloy in the Agent 077 series of films), his girlfriend Nan Grayson and her doctor father are the heroes here and they deal with the leeches in the way that we all knew they would: they use dynamite to blow them up real good.

So yeah. Giant leeches. Wanton women. Dynamite. Cheap film making.

How cheap? Corman didn’t want to pay the grips the extra money for pushing the camera raft in the water, so at first, the director did it, then his brother and finally Corman himself. The cold water led to Corman getting pneumonia and ending up in the hospital. And yes, that is the same music from Night of the Blood Beast. The exact same music is also in Beast from the Haunted Cave.

This movie had some legs. In 1959, it played a double bill with A Bucket of Blood. Then, a year later, it ran alongside Corman’s brother’s film House of Usher. It was also remade in 2008 by Brett Kelly and written by Jeff O’Brien in a film that starred no one you’ve ever heard of.

You can watch this on Tubi with and without commentary from Mystery Science Theater. It’s in the public domain, so you can also grab it from the Internet Archive.