Macumba Love

1960's "Macumba Love" was a color release from United Artists shot in Brazil, the only movie directed (and produced) by veteran bad guy actor Douglas V. Fowley, whose career dated back to the early 30s. Walter Reed plays a noted expose writer looking into a series of unsolved murders apparently caused by a feared voodoo priestess. While he romances local heiress Ziva Rodann ("Pharaoh's Curse"), his daughter shows up for a honeymoon with her new husband, both getting involved at their peril. We get Ziva's seduction of the husband and several threats against Reed but little else, besides cavorting on the beach and much discussion. Boris Karloff faced the same dilemma in "Voodoo Island," but this loser lacks the star power of his presence and wastes the attributes of its comely female cast. Fowley never directed another feature, unable to overcome a poor script and glacial pace, all talk and no action. Reed had previously starred in the 1950 Republic serial "Flying Disc Man from Mars," plus a supporting role as a cop in 1958's "How to Make a Monster."

An interesting memory was jogged at seeing the listing for this film.

I saw this at the drive in when I was 8 and, of course, in my jammies.

I tried to go to sleep in the back seat but was terrified by the voodoo.

44 years later I still remember that damn movie as the bane of my young drive in experience, lol.

My 81 year-old mother still laughs whenever I mention it, although she insists that it was only a "Joe Palooka" doll that was used, and that I actually fell asleep and only woke up at the scary scenes. I seem to recall a different set of facts, but no one else is around to corroborate my story.

I wonder...could she be one of the undead, too?

The Val Lewton movies about voodoo were done much better but then they had a much larger budget than this movie.

Not bad considering its obvious lack of a budget.

The acting is only passable but the beauty of Ziva Rodann and especially June Wilkinson is what makes this movie watchable.

There are some serious questions about voodoo and its applications asked in this movie and that is a kind of refreshing attitude of the subject.

June Wilkinson made a couple of other movies like CAREER GIRL and especially PARTY GIRLS FOR THE CANDIDATE costarring Mamie Van Doren and Ted "Caddyshack" Knight of all people!

This is a movie that offers everything. Minimal doses of gore, sexual suggestiveness, but overall a sense of subtlety that borders on Val Lewtonesque. I'm not sure if director Douglas Fowley was trying for a deliberate feeling of ambiguity or if he was restricted by a low budget but whatever his reasons, it worked! Notice the scene where Peter Weils(Walter Reed) and paramour Venus (Ziva Rodann) are on the beach. A hawk flies down behind a rock and suddenly out steps voodoo preistess Mama Rataloi (Ruth DeSouza). Is she able to change her shape or was she behind the rock all the time and the arrival of the hawk just a coincidence? After she has spied on them she vanishes from sight again and just seconds later we see a snake sliding quickly away. Another coincidence? Personally I think not.

About the gore. There is a scene where Mama Rataloi shoves a hatpin dipped in snake venom through the eye of a man who dared to be a non believer. In the TV prints the whole screen just turns red at that moment but in the theatrical prints we actually see the pin go into the eye, a gore scene that pre-dates H.G. Lewis by 3 years! As for the voodoo depicted in this film being real, just watch what happens at the end of the film when the ceremony is quickly broken up by the police. I won't spoil it for you if you have yet to see the movie but if you have spent the whole running time deciding Mama Rataloi is just a fake, keep your eyes on her during the last minutes of this picture. MACUMBA LOVE was filmed in Brazil, not Haiti because the real voodoo people refused to co-operate with the filmmakers. Obviously the biggest selling point was not the plot itself but the inclusion of June Wilkinson, a British model whose lucky numbers were 44-26-36. Still the plot is handled along believable lines and there are some catchy authentic songs like "Dance Kalinda" and "To Market". This is a hard film to find on video but well worth the hunt.

Best Voodoo movie ever that transfixed me and my crew. Unbelievable powerful Mana Rata Loi