A very brief highlight of Filipino monster movies...

   The Philippines were once noted for their diversity of cultures and the strategic significance the islands represented during World War 2. After the War, a campaign of rebuilding began. In a long sense, this ultimately led to what the Filipinos are noted for today. Chiefly, gritty exploitation movies churned out during the 70's.

   On their surface (and mostly due to their subject matter) most films imported from the Philippines look like cheap exploitation movies. If one looks closer, though, one sees some rather lush production value. While similar American movies were shot in a matter of weeks, sometimes days, Filipino product usually had a production period of months -much to the delight (and horror, given the primitive conditions) of the American actors who sometimes participated.

   The Filipinos probably made more War epics than anything else, and these films are marked by their impressive battle scenes -employing countless extras, impressive pyrotechnics, and a gritty realism created by men who remembered guerilla fighting against the Japanese. Of the films imported to the United States, one would think the chief cinematic output of the Philippines to be the notorious Women In Prison movie. These typically depicted women thrown into hellish jungle prisons where they would eventually mount an escape which resulted in the violent deaths of several men. Pam Grier was a frequent star in these adventures, with Sid Haig usually lurking around close by.

   That was the 70's, though. What really put the Filipinos on the cinematic map for most American audiences in the 60's was a rash of bloody -if often goofy- monster movies. The Filipino formula was a mixture of old-fashioned and new-fangled. Traditional horror elements like mad scientists, vampires, and monsters were gleefully mixed with copious amounts of sex, gore, and eye-popping color. Filipino monsters often dismembered their victims, and sometimes raped the female victims before ripping them apart. Not very pleasant stuff, but it was a hit with the drive-in crowd. Independent International began importing Filipino product and enjoyed a very healthy boxoffice. Things started small, though, in 1959...

   TERROR IS A MAN was one of the earliest Filipino monster movies, possibly the very first. It stands apart from what became the expectations of the genre by being fairly subdued, black and white, and pretty American in feel. A tame play on Dr, Moreau, the film concerns a mad scientist creating his own half-man, half-animal being in the tropics. The film is notable for being the first Filipino horror film to be set on the mythical "Blood Island." The location would be the setting for multiple films a decade later, though the films themselves have little relation. They don't take place within the same universe, either, the writers were just fond of the sound of "Blood Island." TERROR IS A MAN also set the precedent for these pictures starring a blonde bombshell from another country. In this case, it was the European Greta Thyssen. American blondes were even more popular once the cycle really took off. TERROR IS A MAN was re-issued under the title BLOOD CREATURE in the early 60's.

   BRIDES OF BLOOD was the first film of the infamous Blood Island Trilogy released domestically by Independent International Pictures. IIP was pleased to find some affordable, exploitable product with lavish production values and American stars. BRIDES OF BLOOD is also a transition film incorporating the atomic mutation themes of the 50's and the raunchier, racier material of the 70's -all in vivid color. A scientific-medical team is sent to the tropical Blood Island to help establish a more civilized mode of life, as well as to research what lingering atomic radiation has done to the island's ecology. Horrifically, the natives have reverted to a very primitive state, which includes periodic sacrifice of their young maidens to a hideous creature which rips them to pieces while "satisfying himself with them." Peace Corpsman John Ashley is appalled, but still falls in love with the Chief's daughter and tries to intervene when her number comes up in the monster raffle. Meanwhile, scientist Kent Taylor and his sex-addict young bride Beverly Hills have discovered a connection between the periodically-mutating island wild-life and the reclusive Count living in his private castle in the interior. All in all, not a bad picture. Basically, it's the sort of 50's monster movie gobbled up by kids, but played for strictly adult audiences. The formula set in place, later films would be even more explicit in their combination of gore and sex sewn into the tapestry of an earlier monster movie. IIP released the film with one the studio's trademark campy ad campaigns, and it seemed to've worked, because BRIDES OF BLOOD was a hit on drive-in screens. IIP worked the word "Blood" into as many movie titles as it could, upon learning the word practically guaranteed a massive teenage audience. Though considered part of a trilogy, the truth is that BRIDES OF BLOOD is a stand-alone film.

   With a successful formula established with BRIDES OF BLOOD, the makers of MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND upped the stakes a little. This one finds another monster running loose and tearing it's (usually female) victims apart all over Blood Island. Our hero, John Ashley, trails the mutilations back to the titular mad scientist, who has been doing chlorophyll experiments resulting green monsters with literally savage bloodlust. Some impressive action scenes in this one, making me wish John Ashley had made a few spy movies as long as he was in the Philippines, but the film is most notable for it's pulsating camera zooms whenever the monster attacks. I call this Throb-O-Vision, and it could easily produce motion sickness for someone trapped in a theater seat watching this on a giant screen. Throb-O-Vision is not very popular with viewers, but it did show some economical inventiveness. With upped amounts of gore and sex, this was the film that had me wondering at what point for an actor a "love scene" becomes, technically speaking, cheating on one's spouse.

  BEAST OF BLOOD was the direct sequel to MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, and saw levels of graphic violence which made the 80's Slashers seem restrained. As our story opens, the Chlorophyll Man from the previous film still isn't dead (though his features have changed) and begins the new movie by slaughtering the crew of a boat leaving the island. The monster ends up back at the relocated secret lab where the Mad Doctor removes it's head and keeps both it and it's body alive separately! Meanwhile, John Ashley marshals an army to confront the sinister scientist one final time. As in the last picture, some pretty impressive battle scenes occur, giving us a taste of what a John Ashley spy movie might've been like. However, this one was sold almost entirely on the gore and brutal violence. This is the film with the poster infamously depicting a monster ripping it's own head off! (Or is it trying to re-attach it's noggin? If that's the case, one really doesn't get that impression from the ad art itself.) Though never a shy genre, Filipino monster movies didn't often reach this level of berserk action and bloody mayhem. The remaining examples of the genre seemed rather quaint after this. Whatever it's issues, the film was another huge hit for Independent International.

    BRAIN OF BLOOD is an interesting film. The "Blood" movies had been so successful for American distributor IIP that the studio took drastic action when their release schedule suddenly came up short of a Filipino monster movie. Director Al Adamson quickly cobbled together a copycat horror movie about brain transplant experiments and the monster created by such. Though Adamson's directorial talents are most often lacking, he occasionally displayed enough talent to make a 'real' movie. Here, he beats the odds by not only crafting a comparatively solid monster movie, but by also giving it the look and feel of an import! This is accomplished partly by it's use of locations. Although shot in LA, the camera seeks out settings which offer the look of the Philippines -and actually succeeds by avoiding familiar California sights. Star Kent Taylor, of course, had done BRIDES OF BLOOD, which kicked off the whole thing. Within it's crowd of economical drive-in movies, BRAIN OF BLOOD is a fairly solid affair, but this is also the sort of film you grade on a curve. The subterfuge worked, by the way, as reference materials for decades afterward erroneously sourced BRAIN OF BLOOD as an actual Filipino production!

   BLOOD THIRST wasn't seen in the States until 1971, though it was actually produced in the early 60's. This black and white mystery film is more of a detective story, and a pretty good one at that. Ultimately, there's a blood cult and a monster lurking around, but this one is pretty tame. Feels very 50's, in fact. Released in the US as the lower half of a double bill with the British film BLOOD SUCKERS, which was aggressively 70's. I must wonder what the adult audience thought when this quaint black and white B was projected.

   BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT may be the Filipino monster movie most people have seen, due to it's lapse into the public domain. In it's own weird way, BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT is something of a werewolf movie -although it really isn't one, either... John Ashley plays an evil American who makes a deal with the Devil to survive the War. Years later, he turns up and delights in carrying out his boss' orders -until he falls in love. Attempting to change his ways and escape from his pact, Ashley finds himself being punished by routinely changing into a blood-thirsty monster. Despite how it all sounds, it's actually a fairly decent picture. More urban locations than we're used to seeing in this genre.

   SUPERBEAST takes us right back where we started, with a quasi-play on the Dr. Moreau story. This time a young scientist is trying to perfect a formula to stabilize malfunctioning brains, but his mistakes turn into animal-like brutes. These in turn must be hunted down by the bored Great White Hunter who has funded the experiments. Things fall apart when a lady doctor comes snooping around, trying to find the source of the animal-like corpse she autopsied (this real surgery footage is the most graphic thing in this fairly subdued film). TNT's very first edition of 100% WEIRD included both TERROR IS A MAN and SUPERBEAST.

   Around this time, the trend moved away from monster movies to embrace the Women In Prison and War genres. A number of goofy monster pictures were churned out during the 60's and early 70's, though, and many were brought over by IIP. THE BLOOD DRINKERS, THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, and of course, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS thrilled, shocked, and appalled drive-in audiences before going into hibernation until the rental market VHS returned a lot of these thrillers to public attention. In their own way, they remain the embodiment of what we think of as Drive-In Movies. And, because kids couldn't see them, they retained a certain reputation with monster kids as pretty hot stuff. Watching them through adult eyes, I more often find myself wishing they were a bit leaner. Filipino movies tend to drag, despite their technical competence. The Blood Island movies, in particular, could be trimmed by ten or fifteen minutes to their improvement.