Blu-ray Review: Voodoo Black Exorcist

Voodoo Black Exorcist is a strange one about a man who was entombed alive and who now many years later finds a chance to come out of his sarcophagus while it is being transported aboard a luxury ocean liner by a scientist, his associate and his secretary/lover.

The opening scenes show a man and woman making love in a canoe until the woman’s husband arrives, ruining the romantic moment. The man kills the husband, but then in a violent ritual, the woman is executed and the man is entombed. These scenes, completely devoid of dialogue, are effective in commanding our attention. While the man is being entombed in a psychedelically lit cavern, an authoritative off-screen voice tells us about life repeating itself. “Blood will be spilled, terrible things will happen again, and everything will start again.” No, it’s not the best narration. But no matter. Oddly, the film then cuts to a rocket taking off into space, and the opening credit sequence is shown over images of the moon. A strange choice for a mummy film, but this movie doesn’t allow us to take it seriously. Every time we might get the inclination to do so, it delivers some goofy bit of humor.

Back on Earth, the coffin is being loaded onto the ocean liner. And there are actually some carefully crafted shots, like the one when the coffin is being moved to the cargo hold of the ship. The camera stays on the face on the lid of the sarcophagus. Poor Freddy is left to guard the coffin, instructed by Dr. Kessling that he’ll even have to sleep there in the cargo hold. Geez. But I suppose they must take precautions. After all, there are some strange characters aboard this ship. Like the guy who flirts with a married woman using the line, “I have a slaughterhouse in Chicago.” How could she not fall for him? Or the drunk woman who is first shown with a giant deck of playing cards, and then shown reading the Tarot and predicting an unexpected visitor will come aboard the ship. In a slightly better movie, this character would be played by Shelley Winters. She and her hapless husband provide much of the humor of the film.

Of course, it’s not long before the coffin opens and our friend emerges. Hey, where did Freddy go? The mummy immediately wins me over by showing his distaste for cats. Interestingly, we then get shots from the mummy’s perspective, and apparently all he wanted to do was go above deck and look out at the ocean. While he does so, we see his skin slowly return to its former glory. Well, as the narrator warned us, “Everything will start again,” and it turns out everyone involved in those opening scenes is traveling on this ship. The executioner from the ritual is now a bartender. And the woman the mummy once loved is Dr. Kessling’s secretary/lover, Sylvia. You see, this is actually a love story of sorts. However, seeing her makes him return to his ugly mummy state for some reason. Hot redheads can have that effect on men, I suppose. But after a bit of rest in the coffin, he’s able to deliver a gift to Sylvia. Sometimes it’s tough buying for a woman, particularly if you’ve just met her and don’t know her taste. However, most men know that women don’t generally like receiving severed heads.

At one port, Dr. Kessling is supposed to meet a colleague, but the mummy – looking human – takes the other scientist’s place. And this is where it gets weird, because the mummy actually wants to help Dr. Kessling with his research on voodoo, telling him he could provide more help than the other scientist ever could. Ah, all any of us wants is to feel needed, I suppose.

By the way, the other character that is there mainly for humor is the detective trying to solve the murder of the bartender. At one point he says: “You see, I have a system. When I don’t have a lead, I drink gin and wait.” You’d be surprised how many crimes are solved with this system. Then later, when Dr. Kessling asks him how he’s doing, the detective replies: “Terrible. Moody. Perplexed. It’s so damn hot here, don’t you think?” There is some unintentional humor as well. During the fight scene when the mummy retrieves his special ring, be sure to look in the mirror and say hi to the camera man, who is plainly visible. And the mummy tells the scientist that he learned English from being in museums for so many years, which of course makes me wonder just where was Dr. Kessling transporting the sarcophagus from? And where was he taking it?

And if you’ve been wondering about the exorcist, I’m going to spoil the surprise and tell you there isn’t one. No exorcist in Voodoo Black Exorcist. This movie was released in 1974, a year after The Exorcist, and I’m sure that other film’s popularity had something to do with the choice of English titles for this film. It’s not a great movie, but it is truly enjoyable. The end, however, feels rushed.

Voodoo Black Exorcist is being released on Blu-ray and DVD today, May 23, 2017, through The Film Detective. The film has been digitally remastered, restored from the original 35mm film elements, and it looks good. The Blu-ray contains no special features.