La isla del terror

This is the film that practically started the influx of Filipino exploitation that exploded in the 70s. It's a slow but mediocre version of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU with a cat creature experiment that gets loose and kills a few secondary characters among scientific jabber about the experiment being for the benefit of mankind rather than personal vanity. This is lackluster stuff and is too Americanized. The Blood Island trilogy and women's prison flicks that would come ten years later is the kind of delirious entertainment that Filipino exploitation is remembered for. Worth a look but hardly memorable.

The castaway William Fitzgerald (Richard Derr) is rescued in an island by Dr. Charles Girard (Francis Lederer), his lonely wife Frances Girard (Greta Thyssen) and his assistant Walter Perrera (Oscar Keesee Jr.). A couple of days later, Fitzgerald has an affair with Frances and realizes that the unethical and insane Dr. Girard is developing sick experiments and transforming a panther into a man-like creature. Meanwhile, the monster escapes from the laboratory, killing Walter and the servant Celina and seizing and capturing Frances with him. Fitzgerald and Dr. Girard chase the being along the night.

"Terror is a Man" is a watchable rip-off of "The Island of Dr. Moreau", with a monster that behaves like The Creature in "Frankenstein" and with the appearance of The Mummy. The story is silly, but considering that it is a very low-budget and theatrical B-movie, entertains. Unfortunately, the shameful DVD released in Brazil by the distributor Fantasy shows a completely damaged copy, "jumping" many scenes and making parts of the story impossible to be understood. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Criatura Sangrenta" ("Blood Creature")

Apparently there are scientists around who want to turn animals into men. This is the story of one of them. Of course, the signature story is that of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." Here, a man traps black leopards and evolves them (?) into bipeds that have great strength. He is messing where he shouldn't be messing. A castaway comes along and gets in the way (by being moral in one sense but messing with the pretty wife in the other sense). Anyway, there is a nasty sidekick who hits the animal/man with a two by four and catman becomes violent when he sees this guy. Anyway, other than a kind of oppressive jungle setting, there is little new ground here.

Just discovered this Philippine(My parents' native country)-made horror movie here on IMDb as linked from Hulu. Despite the bland romantic trappings between the triangle of Francis Lederer, Richard Derr, and the buxom blonde from Denmark named Greta Thyssen, this was a pretty effective chiller during the last 30 minutes as effectively visualized by Gerardo de Leon with I'm sure help from producer Eddie Romero. There's also some nice work from the natives like Oscar Keesee as the villain, his son Peyton as the innocent boy, and stunning Lilia Duran as the other hired help. And then there's the creature played by Flory Carlos who spends most of the movie wrapped in bandages. His mummy-like performance gets effective treatment due to the music by Ariston Avelino. May be most effective to maybe to those 12 and under who haven't seen anything gory yet. Certainly the "buzzer" that warns of a 15-second "surgery" scene was nothing that shocked my senses! So on that note, Terror Is a Man is worth a look for fans of old-fashioned Drive-In fare.

I saw this a few times as a young child (thanks, KSTW in Washington!) and it always stayed in my mind and lo and behold, after recently watching it again (thanks, MOVIE MADNESS in Portland!) I must say that it holds up remarkably well; the things that stood out in my childhood memories are still pretty potent; for a film almost a half century old the monster make-up effects and the creature's attacks are surprisingly well handled. The performances, too, surprised me by their contemporary tone, especially good was Francis Lederer as the strangely sympathetic mad scientist. The creature is a well-drawn movie monster; more suffering animal than murdering beast, it always had my sympathy--at least this time around. The images of it skulking about in its mummy-like bandages remain pretty evocative. The one drawback is the films poky pace--i could have done with much less of the domestic dramas around the hut and more of the monster, but that is a small quibble; overall, Terror Is a Man is a forgotten gem.