“It was a man alright. Or someone that once was a man.”
A ship arrives at Blood Island. On board are a pathologist, Dr. Bill Foster (John Ashley), a woman looking for her father, Sheila Willard (Angelique Pettyjohn) and a young man hoping to convince his mother to move off the island, Carlos Lopez (Ronaldo Valdez).
Sheila discovers that her father is a hopeless alcoholic and Mrs. Lopez does not want to leave the island. Mrs. Lopez is living in the house of Dr. Lorca (Ronald Remy). She moved there with her husband. He was a patient of Dr. Lorca but he died. Mrs. Lopez stays on the island to be near her husband’s grave.
Bill is investigating a strange disease that seems to be infecting some of the islanders. There are stories of a green-skinned monster with chlorophyll blood that has been killing the local natives. One of them tries to break into the government house but is scared off. Sheila is attacked in the jungle by the chlorophyll monster. She manages to escape but a native is killed.
Dr. Lorca has been experimenting on the natives, including the unfortunate Don Ramon, who had sought Dr. Lorca's serum as a treatment for his cancer. Dr. Lorca claims that he died anyway.
“Mad Doctor of Blood Island” was released in 1969 and was directed by Eddie Romero and Gerry DeLeon. It is a Filipino movie and is third in the Blood Island series of movies. Sam Sherman is at it again. The hook for theater goers connected with this movie was a prologue to the film that invited theatergoers to join in a bizarre initiation. Each patron was given a free packet of colored liquid labeled "green blood". At a certain point, the audience was told to "recite the oath of green blood" and drink what was in the packets. By doing this, the viewer could safely watch "the unnatural green-blooded ones without fear of contamination". The prologue was shot at Clark Air Base in Manila using American teenagers.
Sam Sherman said years later in an interview that he drank one of the packets and it made him sick to his stomach. There are anecdotal reports that teenagers actually drank the stuff.
In another gimmick, the camera zoomed in and out rapidly each time the monster killed or stalked someone; a technique that some theatergoers complained made them dizzy. It was actually designed to cover up the bad make-up effects. It didn’t take long for it to annoy me either. But I see why they thought it might be a good idea cause the monster actually was kinda lame.
There’s more blood and guts in this movie than in the previous ones. Also more naked women. Not a lot more but a little more. It’s not porn or anything like that. Also the plot is pretty sparse and the acting is not all that great. All that stuff is fine and dandy.
There is one part that could be a little off putting for animal people. There is a sacrifice that the villagers do to try to appease the monster. It entails a dance, which is fine, but then the villagers run up to an altar that has all kinds of animals on it; a chicken, a goat, a pig and they are all tied down. The villagers then stab the animals. I’m not sure if it’s real or not but there is what looks like blood and the animals are squawking and bleating. It doesn’t look totally real but, after all it is the Philippines so I’m just not sure. I wasn’t comfortable with it, but I prefer to believe it was fake.