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.
After only one member of a survey team (in a zombie-like trance) returns from an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean, the wealthy industrialist named "Howard Carlton" (Owen Cunningham) hires an investigator by the name of "Phillip Knight" (Boris Karloff) to go to the island and check it out. Phillip is accompanied by his pretty assistant "Sarah Adams" (Beverly Tyler), the owner of the boat "Martin Schuyler" (Elisha Cook Jr.
Writer, TV host and debunker Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) is hired to investigate a South Pacific island where people have mysteriously disappeared. He takes along a bunch of obnoxious stereotypical characters.
If it wasn't for Boris Karloff, I probably would not have seen Voodoo Island. After seeing it, I do think that Karloff is the best thing about Voodoo Island, he has given far better performances but he brings a lot of class and command to his role.
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.
The 1957 Boris Karloff film "Voodoo Island" seems to have a widespread reputation as being one of the actor's all-time worst, so it was with a feeling of resignation and borderline cinematic masochism that I popped this DVD into the player the other night. "Voodoo Island" was Karloff's first horror picture in four years, his only release for 1957; he would rebound a bit the following year, with the releases of the fun shlockfest "Frankenstein 1970" and the even better (British) film "Grip of the Strangler.
Voodoo Island (1957) * 1/2 (out of 4) A man comes back from an island in a zombie-like state so a TV personality (Boris Karloff) goes back to see if it's really voodoo or something else. Before MGM released this film, I had heard plenty about it and none of it was very good.
Anytime you see Boris Karloff listed in the credits of a horror movie, the temptation emerges to know that he's going to turn out to be a bad guy long before any bad guys are revealed. There are exceptions to that idea, however, and often, he ended up being either a red herring or simply an innocent participant in the horrors going on around him.
I'm pretty sure that Boris Karloff wouldn't have been too quick to mention this film when it came to talking about his career, and that's hardly surprising as Voodoo Island is a cheap little adventure flick and there isn't much reason to recommend it to anyone. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the film is, as others have pointed out, that despite the title; there is very little actual voodoo in the film.
