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From my favorite movies..

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

...and the crypto-lesbian sub-plot. But mostly Karloff.Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt) is one of the all-time great English-language actors. Not just for horror films, but anything.He's the undisputable master of underplaying. His delivery is always subtle, nuanced, and restrained. At the same time, he can embroider the most-trite dialog and make you believe Shakespeare wrote it. (Jack Elam is nearly as great an actor, though in a different sort of way.)The six-star rating is primarily for Karloff's performance. Otherwise, it would get two stars (just barely)."Voodoo Island" would make a great double feature with "Little Shop of Horrors" (especially the musical).

Boris Karloff stars as professional "hoax buster" Philip Knight, who is hired by a wealthy industrialist to prove that the South Pacific island he wants to develop isn't voodoo cursed, since the locals won't work for him otherwise. Upon arrival, he, along with a fellow group of people of various occupations(played by Elisha Cook Jr. & Rhodes Reason, among others) discover that this time, the supernatural is really at work, as they encounter mysterious forces, hostile tribes and carnivorous plants. They must recommend this place unsuitable for development, that is if they can escape with their lives... Good cast(especially Karloff) can't save this silly film, though it has understandably become a cult favorite to some.

Phillip Knight(Boris Karloff)makes a living writing books that debunk superstitions, curses and the such. He is hired by a mega-rich industrialist to prove that an island in the Pacific is safe enough to build a future resort in spite of mysterious disappearances. You can bet that real estate prices plummet after the discovery of carnivorous plants and roaming zombies.Really nothing to see that is horribly frightening. Your imagination is suppose to do that for you; although the score by Les Baxter is superb in the category of creepiness. Actually not a bad movie; Karloff himself stoic and bit mysterious...and he's the good guy. Familiar B-movie stalwarts fill the rest of the cast: Elisha Cook Jr., Rhodes Reason, Beverly Tyler, Joan Engstrom and Herbert Patterson.

***SPOILERS***Not really getting off the ground and scaring the audience "Voodoo Island" just goes from one scene to another until it finally ends, without really explaining all the weird things in it.With three out of four men of a survey team lost on this uncharted island in the Pacific another team is sent to find out what exactly happened to them. The only survivor of the group Mitchell,Glen Dixon, is more dead then alive with a wild look in his eyes, that he never closes, that has everyone on the set calling him "Winky".Lead by TV personality Phillip Knight, Boris Karloff, the group lands on a nearby island to rent a boat and equipment to check out the mysterious atoll. Martin Schuyler, Elisha Cook, who owns the island is a bit taken that anyone will want anything to do with it. The group of people looking for the missing surveyors work for this big hotel magnate Howard Carlton, Owen Cunningham, who's interested in building a five star hotel there.So far so good as far as "Voodoo Island" goes but when Knight and his team including boat captain Gunn, Rhodes Reason, get on shore the movie just seems to go nowhere. Mitchell who was brought along suddenly came to life and made a brake for it. Dropping dead, this time for real, Mitchell is found by the pier with a voodoo doll that was made to look like him. Right there and then the rescue team should have realized what their in for especially when there was also found a Mawanga Bag, some kind of Voodoo artifact, indicating that their all targeted for death if they ever reach the island.Even though we have a number of flesh eating plants and some sinister Polynesian-looking natives who's chief, Fredrich Von Ledebur, looks strangely European there's nothing in the movie that really scares you. Even when the plants go into action attacking and killing Cliar (Jean Engstrom), one of the rescue team member, the scene is about as funny or believable as the scene with Bela Lugosi and the rubber octopus in "Bride of the Monster"! We do have a strange love triangle, which is about the most interesting thing in the film, between the macho boat captain Gunn and photographer Sarah Adams, Beverly Tyler, and the soon to be departed Clair. Clair an out of the closet lesbian really gets to hit it on with Sarah and at the same time sticks it to Gunn, being the macho man that he thinks he is, who also wants to get into her pants. I have a feeling that the movie makers had Clair killed off so early in the film to avoid anyone watching from figuring out, this in the innocent USA of 1957, what exactly Clair was not only up to but who, a lesbian, she really was. Getting Clair out of the picture also made it possible for Gunn to finally get romantic with the, what seemed to me, stuck-up on men Sarah Adams. Sarah actually was getting real hot and heavy with Clair and was anything but defensive to Macho Man Gunns advances until Clair was finally dispatched from the scene.The movie plods along with the team finally reaching, after being captured by the locals, this native village and getting the lowdown from the natives chief and witch doctor Friedich Von Ledebur to what's going on. Von Ledebur has been running the place for the last fifty years and wants no one from the outside world to interfere with his operation. Being sick and tired of the excesses and corruption of the civilized world Von Ledebur just wants to live in peace, with his natives, which is why he has anyone, like Mitchell and the missing survivors, who enter his kingdom either turned into zombies or eaten by his plants.There's still the greedy and materialistic Schuyler and Finch (Marvyn Vye), who's hotel magnate Cunninghmans advance man, to be taken care of with Fnch getting by far the worst of it. Schuyler is at least put to his eternal rest by jumping into the river and being eaten by the flesh-devouring plants. Finch's fate is far more saver; he's turned into, by chief Von Ledebur, a card-carrying member of the walking dead!