Curse of the Voodoo

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Lindsay Shonteff. Produced by RIchard Gordon. Original British title: Curse of Simba. Released in America by Allied Artists. Screenplay by Brian Clemens; Photography by Gerald Gibbs; Edited by Barrie Vince; Music by Brian Fahey. Starring: Bryant Halliday, Dennis Price, Lisa Daniely, Mary Kerridge, Ronald Leigh Hunt, Jean Lodge, Louis Mahoney, Valli Newby, Beryl Cunningham and Mike Nightingale.

Voodoo curse torments a white hunter who killed a lion in an area of lion-worshiping natives. It dominates his life back in London until he returns to Africa to kill his curser. Fine music, female pulchritude and excellent, suspenseful photography help punch up the weak story. An English forest is used to simulate the African bush, giving these scenes a most unroutine look in comparison to the stock safari saga. Lack of chills or supernatural atmosphere causes the film to be far inferior to Shonteff's memorable next effort: "The Devil Doll".

This dull follow-up to producer Richard Gordon and director Lindsay Shonteff's DEVIL DOLL stars Bryant Haliday as a big game hunter in modern day Africa who bags a lion on Simbasa territory and is cursed by the tribe, who revere lions as gods. Although Haliday flees to London, he is wracked by unexplained fevers and is dogged (or is he?) by spectral Simbasa warriors who run him down on Hempstead Heath and peek in through his seedy hotel window. It's all pretty unexciting stuff; although the film begins and ends in the Dark Continent, the lion's share of the story takes place indoors - apart from a couple of exteriors and one ill-advised attempt at a "Lewton walk," where Haliday hears the growling of game cats while walking back to his hotel one night (this might have had some effect had not Shonteff overlaid Brian Fahey's bombastic score atop it, killing the atmosphere). 1965 matinee audiences must have been driven mad by this unrelentingly dull voodoo drama; seen now after the passage of thirty years, its racist underbelly destroys any possibility of enjoying the film on a kitsch level. British character actor Dennis Price brings class to the production, but he's wasted as Haliday's sage advisor.

Now then, where to start.... I am a big fan of the ultimately rather tragic Dennis Price; he was superb in "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949) so thought I'd defy the reviews and give it a chance. Well, you know what - it's dreadful nonsense. Bryant Haliday is a big game hunter who commits the ultimate taboo for a local tribe of voodoo worshippers - he kills a Simla (not the one from the cartoon, you understand...). This is sacrilegious to the locals - and so when Haliday gets back home, suitably cursed, he begins to have hallucinations that he is being chased across rural England by spear-yielding warriors... Now anyone who has ever tried running through a grassy, thistle filled field clad only in a loincloth will appreciate just how difficult - decidedly jaggy and slippy, bestrewn with cow pats - it can be; and that's without a man in skintight white denim taking potshots at you; or indeed, pointing his jeep in your direction... The film is simply woeful; the action scenes filmed and edited as it were a jigsaw puzzle and the music was so interfering as to render the whole thing amongst the worst example of British cinema I have ever had the misfortune to watch.

Bryant Haliday is a world-weary professional hunter who kills a lion partially wounded by a member of his party. The rest of the film follows the effects of the curse put on him by the local tribe who worship lions. There is no voodoo as such and they should have kept to the original titles, The Lion Men, or Curse of Simba, but no doubt Mr Gordon reasoned these weren't strong enough for exploitation purposes. The tribesmen, presented as savages, do respect the lions which is more than the idiots today who pay huge sums of money to hunt these magnificent animals down. Somehow big-game hunting of the past doesn't seem so bad though.

The film moves at a leisurely pace when back in England and the attempts to emulate Lewton don't really come off. The original version under review runs for 82 minutes and it's understandable that some of the later footage of Haliday's inner torment was cut. Dennis Price is good but has to little to do and Beryl Cunningham's exotic dancing is certainly captivating. Brian Fahey provides a driving score even if it's used inappropriately in places.

Also known as "Curse of Simba". A bigoted hunter visiting Africa kills a lion in a territory where the animal is sacredly revered by a voodoo tribe. He becomes cursed and then heads back to England where he endures feverish symptoms and hallucinates that African tribesmen are stalking him everywhere he goes. After a promising first twenty minutes or so, nothing much happens and we're bogged down with the hunter's marital problems and his seeing things. The only cure for his delirium is for him to return to Africa and kill the witch doctor who cursed him. Unfortunately, we do not like this character nearly enough to empathize with his predicament at all. The final shot of the film - for anyone who makes it that far - is pretty chilling. *1/2 out of ****