Isle of the Snake People (1971)

Load of rubbish!!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Excellent but underrated film

Blistering performances.

I give this a rating completely above bomb, simply because it is often hysterical and because of that opening shot of the world map that looks into a non-existent island where this supposedly takes place. A narration of the world's cults and odd customs prepares the viewer for 90 minutes of oddities, from the cackling dwarf overseeing voodoo rituals to the sudden attacks on men by presumably cannibalistic women on unsuspecting men as a part of their snake worshiping rituals. Toss in Boris Karloff as the presumably head of the cult (whose evil looking daughter is seen performing some of the rituals) and you've got the recipe for one of the most laughably bad foreign horror movies ever made.It's obvious to me that this is part of the legion of dozens of bad horror films influenced by Mario Bava's huge success, "Black Sunday", something that even he was never able to top. Certainly the atmospheric settings and sinister looking special effects and bloody photography do have all the elements that make for a visually pleasing ghoul fest. But the cast is truly wretched, and Karloff (dead nearly two years when this got released) seems tired and uninterested. There's no one among the women in the cast who comes even close to capturing the sinister magic that Barbara Steele provided in even the worst of her films. I have read reports that it us not Karloff's voice in the dubbed print, but it certainly sounded like him to me.

On the Caribbean island of Korbai, the natives perform animal and human sacrifices under the mysterious voodoo priest, Damballah. When a new law-enforcement official, Captain Labesch (Rafael Bertrand), arrives, he is outraged that the police have turned a blind eye to the cult's murderous ways. Determined to bring about law and order, Labesch seeks the aid of Carl Van Molder (Boris Karloff), a wealthy and powerful landowner who advises the captain against interfering with native customs. When he ignores Van Molder's advice, policemen start turning up dead, killed by female zombies under the command of the sultry priestess Kalia (Tongolele) and a grinning, maniacal dwarf (Santonon) in sunglasses. There's also a romantic sub-plot involving Labesch's assistant, Lt. Wilhelm (Carlos East), and Van Molder's visiting niece, Annabella (Julissa), who is a proud member of the Anti-Saloon League.Karloff looks like death warmed over but is reasonably effective as the oily Van Molder. Tongolele drips with diabolical sensuality as the snake-handling voodoo priestess; the close-ups of her eyes are particularly stunning. The highly attractive Julissa is less than believable as the chaste and tee-totaling Annabella; her most effective scene is a fevered-dream sequence in which Annabella has lesbian sex with her doppelganger. Rafael Bernard chews the scenery as the self-righteous, tunnel-visioned Captain Labesch. Carlos East is barely there as the handsome, if hard-drinking, Lt. Wilhelm.The most striking performance is the dwarf Santonon's. Whether flogging an errant zombie, laughing insanely as he beheads a chicken, helping Kalia perform a ritual to manipulate Annabella's dreams, or bleeding to death after he is repeatedly slashed with a machete, Santonon fully owns each of his scenes. I can't say that his performance is good, but it damned sure stayed with me!SNAKE PEOPLE is by no means a great horror film, but I found it entertaining—even if it didn't take me long to figure out who Damballah was; even if the horrible dialogue sounds even worse when dubbed from Spanish to English; and even if the ending was too damned abrupt. The best scenes are mainly of the snake-dancers and the voodoo rituals.My favorite line of dialogue, courtesy of Annabella: "Modern science has proved that alcohol is responsible for 99.2% of all the world's sins!" (Yeah, the same way it proved that vaccines are responsible for autism.)

Yes, I put poople on purpose. I will admit that I was finishing an "art" project for the first fifteen minutes or so, but even then, when I wasn't really paying attention, I could tell that this was going to be a terrible movie. First off, I'd like to say that I truly feel sorry for Boris and Bela. During their later years, not only did they do awful films, they did films that are considered the worst of all time. That's okay, though. Karloff is barely even in this shipwreck. The dubbing was terrible. I don't even think that was Karloff's real voice. Most everything else was deplorable as well, including a painfully slow pace. I will say this about the film. The odd dream sequence brings the old "Making out with oneself" gag to an entirely different level. Other than that and a few exotic dance scenes,it really has nothing going for it. I haven't been through such cinematic agony since my attempt to watch an uncut version of "Manos the Hands of Fate".

Snakes. A midget with a flower painted on his bald head. An aging Boris Karloff in full-on "Colonel Sanders" mode. An inane plot (that's neither funny nor so-bad-it's-funny) intercut with backlot, Roger Corman-style voodoo ceremony scenes. Bad dubbing trying to pull all the disparate elements together.This South-of-the-Border horror quickie (scripted by Jack Hill, of "Spider Baby" fame) is one of two films that spliced in separately-shot footage of Karloff near the end of his life to make the lousy thing marketable. "The Snake People" is just a dull, charmlessly inept piece of junk--director Juan Ibanez makes Ed Wood look like Scorsese.