Isle Of The Snake People

Isle of the Snake People (La Muerte Viviente) (1971)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Juan Ibanez/Jack Hill

Starring: Boris Karloff and a bunch of people you've never heard of before

From: Somehow, it was released in the United States by Columbia

Each March, I spend some time (although not all of the movies I view that month fit into this category) watching foreign movies due to it being a yearly tradition at Letterboxd. This one is Mexico/USA and it is rather lousy; there isn't even much in the way of snakes.

All that said, I could have started this off with a revisit of a classic or something I suspect would be ****+. Instead, I went the cheesy route, viewing something that was a special feature on the old Something Weird DVD of the 70's exploitation movie Rattlers-which I haven't watched in all that time, as that is one of my trademarks-one of the movies that Boris Karloff made in the twilight of his life w/ Mexican producer Luis Enrique Vergara where his scenes were shot separately in Los Angeles by Jack Hill and the rest were done by Juan Ibanez in Mexico. I've seen Fear Chamber before-which confusingly is sometimes known as The Snake People-and that was so bizarre I was never bored; sadly, this is no Fear Chamber.

Karloff is a mad scientist on a tropical island and the other characters include his teetotaler niece and inept French colonial A-holes-the leader of which is given a Pepe Le Pew accent by the English dubbing-who rule over the island, the setting I would guess to be the early 20th century. A Lieutenant is named Wilhelm but regrettably, neither him nor anyone else does The Wilhelm Scream. Anyhow, rituals are being done to create zombies and this is led by the masked Damballa... gee, I wonder who that could be. You think this would be exciting and there are some out-there moments involving a “little person” and an exotic lady known as Kalea (not to mention, random telekinesis)... but much to my dismay, too much of this is just dreadfully dull, a dreary slog to get through.

Fear Chamber is about a sentient rock creature that is hooked up to computers-don't ask, as the movie doesn't answer-communicates in Moog sounds and needs the adrenaline of women to survive! Between that, the over the top ways that women are scared to get them full of adrenaline and a hilarious hulking brute character named Roland, this wackiness provided plenty of amusement. Henceforth, this movie lacking in much entertainment value, scares, kills worth a damn, or a zombie tale that seemed worth telling... not even Karloff dressed like he was Colonel Sanders or having his pants pulled up all the way up to almost his nipples was something I could guffaw about, as he was in poor health by this point and much of this movie is best left forgotten.