Isle Of The Snake People (1971)

 Isle Of The Snake People (1971)
aka: La Muerte Viviente

Sadly at the end of his career, Boris Karloff was starring in some pretty bottom of the barrel films, which is so sad to see the great actor who played Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy in their first film appearances, playing sinking to the bottom.  Just before his death in 1969 he was filmed his part for 4 Mexican horror films, that have ultimately been mostly forgotten over the years.  One of those strange Mexican b-horror films was La Muerte Viviente, or Isle Of The Snake People in the US, or just Snake People in the UK.  This film sees Karloff starring as a rich plantation owner on a remote pacific island, and he dabbles in science and voodoo, and there is some voodoo cult that dance half-naked with snakes, and zombies and an evil dwarf...okay this film is just weird.  I think that Snake People attempts to be artsy, and almost psychedelic at times, but overall just really loses its direction.

Isle Of The Snake People was directed by Juan Ibanez in Mexico, though Karloff's scenes were directed by Jack Hill in Las Angeles, because Karloff's health was failing at the time of filming.  The screenplay was written by Luis Enrique Vergara with a rewrite by Jack Clark, as Karloff rejected the original screenplay.  Isle Of THe Snake People was distributed by Columbia Pictures in 1971, and was dismissed by critics and viewers alike, even ardent Boris Karloff fans were dismissive of the film, and didn't consider it a distinguished film.   The film was originally released in the US as a Spanish language film under the name La Muerte Viviente, and did very poorly, later it was dubbed into English and recieved a second limited run in the theaters, which it again failed to draw any attention.  

Isle Of The Snake People stars Boris Karloff as Carl van Molder, Julissa as Anabella Vandenberg, Carlos East as Lt. Andrew Wilhelm, Rafael Bertrand as Capt. Pierre Labesch, Tongolele as Yolanda Montes, Quintin Bulnes as Klinsor, Santanon as (this is how it is listed in the credits on the copy I have, not my words) midget, and Julia Marchal as Mary Ann Vandenberg.  I don't know what to say about this cast, first of all with the film, being an English dub of Spanish language film, it is really hard to judge if the actors are any good at their parts or not, honestly, the film is just a mess, and I think you could have the greatest actors in the world, and the film would still have just been a mess, and you can't polish a turd no matter how good the actors are.

Isle Of The Snake People, as a horror film was quite passe at the time of its release, as in 1969 George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead change horror films for ever, especially the zombie subgenre of horror films, so when Isle Of The Snake People was released, fans were unimpressed with the classic voodoo zombies in the film, as they had just seen the fleshing eating ghouls of Romero's groundbreaking film.   However the film still notable in its own way, I mean it was 1971, and we saw a Mexican b-horror film with the legendary Boris Karloff, and then there is half naked women dancing with snakes, a white (appearing) man who marries a black zombie and makes out with her (some borderline interracial necrophilia type thing going on), then there is a woman who in a dream makes out with a woman who looks just like here (so like not only a lesbian scene, but with a weird twist to it), it is suffice to say that this is a strange film, and maybe on the grounds of its weirdness it is worth checking out.

So I suppose I should ask myself, would I recommend this film?  Honestly I don't know, this is an undeniably bad film, but is it so bad it's good?  No I don't think so, I don't think you should watch this film on the grounds of it being bad, I think that if you watch this film, do it because of how weird this film is.  I haven't watched enough Mexican films to have an opinion, but if this is what Mexican films are like, then all I can say is there is something weird going on down there, because this film is bizarre, bizarre enough that I think that it is only watchable for it's bizarreness.   This is not a must-see film, and this isn't even a film that I would recommend, but if you are a fan of weird films, then I think that you should check it out.  This is another public domain film, and it is often found in public domain horror movie collection DVDs, so if you find it on one, and you like bizarre films, then give it a view.  You can probably find it online too, I am not sure it is worth paying for to add to your collection, so if you want to watch it, you can probably find it online somewhere for free (which is something I don't usually recommend doing, but in this case, I don't think the film is actually worth spending money on).