jadflack-22130 Remember the " Mad Scientist" series of films Boris Karloff did for Columbia studios in the 1930's and 40's? Bela Lugosi did a batch of them for low budget studio Monogram in the 40's.This one is a hokey old melodrama that gets some laughs that are not always intended, and film seems to run much longer than it's just over an hour running time.Poor Bela tries, and Wanda Mckay is pretty,George Zucco spouts mumbo jumbo for most of his time on screen. As for John Carradine,he realises he is in a poor potboiler and gives the performance to accompany it. it does occasionally poke fun at itself. Fair at best and that's being generous.

Mark Honhorst This is about what you'd expect from a Bela Lugosi vehicle from the mid 1940s. At this point, his career was steadily sliding downhill, but hadn't quite reached rock bottom as he would in the early to mid 50s. This is a low budget Monogram quickie, with nothing particularly exciting or memorable going for it. The plot is predictable and derivative of an earlier, slightly better Lugosi flick- "The Corpse Vanishes". Bela plays a mad doctor (wow, really?) who drains the life out of several young women into the body of his decades dead wife(who happens to possess a stylish 1940s hairdo). He is aided by a Voodoo practicing gas station attendant and two imbecilic henchmen. All is going well until a Hollywood scriptwriter stumbles upon their little operation.While some of the characters and situations are somewhat different from your typical low budget Monogram flick, it's mostly just same ol' same ol'. You've got a creepy house in the middle of nowhere, lots of driving through the woods, and Bela doing what he does best. (or at least most often). To it's credit, the movie does have a decent cast. Bela's great as usual, John Carradine and George Zucco make formidable secondary characters, and this does contain some nice looking ladies, including Louise Currie, who happens to slightly resemble Gillian Anderson of "X Files" fame, at least to me... Also, the set design is decent as well. The finale, which takes place in a cave, springs to mind.But overall, this is just a mediocre 1940s horror flick, clearly only made to make a few bucks, with very little effort on the part of the writer or director.

kitchent Voodoo Man is like a lot of the poverty row horrors in that it showed signs that there was a good film in there somewhere, but somehow it just doesn't quite come together. The film starts out pretty good and the first fifteen minutes or so allow for a fine introduction to the story. Girls are disappearing in the town and everyone is concerned. Then we are treated to an excellent scene with Louis Currie and Bela Lugosi with some eerie lighting, great close ups, and a generally spooky atmosphere. Things are looking up!But then 4 minutes later we have George Zucco in face paint and a headdress chanting rubbish backed up by John Carradine acting a fool and banging on a bongo drum. Sigh. Welcome to a Monogram horror film.Oh well, the story continues and it becomes typical poverty row horror dribble with ineffective humor thrown in. The good part is that Louis Currie, Wanda McKay, and the other kidnapped girls look great. George Zucco in the headdress is always funny, and I laughed out loud when the Sheriff said, "Gosh all fish hooks" when he spots Louis Currie wandering around the road. You just can't get that kind of dialog in an 'A' picture.Voodoo Man is not a total waste. Bela Lugosi is fine in the film, and the ladies look great. The first fifteen minutes could almost be mistaken for a better film, and if that mood had continued, Voodoo Man could have been so much more.

OneView Voodoo Man (1944) is one of nine films Bela Lugosi made for Monogram Films in the early 1940s. Monogram was a producer of B-movies (and some would argue C-movies at the very least), usually shot in under a week with a modicum of style or substance encompassed within their narratives.Some of these films remain quite watchable - Bowery at Midnight (1942) for example has a slight dementia to it due to the multiple plot lines and characters. Voodoo Man is less successful despite a promising cast that includes Lugosi, Carradine and Zucco as well as a zombie-themed plot. However, too much time is spent on the romantic leads who are quite a dull pair (both in plot and performance terms.) Lugosi is good and plays the sentimental angle of trying to resurrect his dead wife with admirable conviction. His partner in crime George Zucco shows admirable restraint in delivering his mumbo jumbo dialogue like it was the most revered Shakespearian verse. In some scenes the terrible Would War I injury to his right hand and arm is evident in his inability to straighten the fingers. John Carradine is stooped and bored throughout but manages to look like a typical stoner decades early as he slowly bangs his bongo drums with a 'far-out' expression on his face.Overall the film is an amusing diversion with lots of little moments hampered by a low budget and unadventurous direction. A must for those with an interest in the classic horror period but can be readily skipped by others.