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Released by: The Film Detective
Released on: May 23rd, 2017.
Director: Manuel Caí±o
Cast: Aldo Sambrell, Fernando Sancho, Alexander Abrahan, Eva Leí³n, Alfredo Mayo, Ricardo Rodríguez
Year: 1975
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The Movie:
In the opening of Manuel Caí±o's 1975 picture Voodoo Black Exorcist, Guedé Nibo (Aldo Sambrell) and Kenya (Eva Leí³n) are a couple in love enjoying sun and sand on the beaches of Haiti. Their love is short lived, however, when Kenya's father discovers them. A fight breaks out and the father is killed - oops! It only gets worse from there as Kenya has her head cut off and Guedé is buried alive in a hulking sarcophagus and laid to rest in a cave.
A thousand years later, we travel to the current day of 1975. The sarcophagus that Guedé was placed in was on display in an Egyptian museum but is now being shipped back to Haiti on a fancy ocean liner loaded with passengers and tourists. The mummy inside was being studied by Professor Kessling (Alfredo Mayo) and his very familiar looking assistant Sylvia (Eva Léon again), who he just so happens to be fooling around with. As part of the ship's entertainment, a voodoo themed show is performed on the boat that has the unfortunate side effect of bringing mummified Guedé back to life (though puzzlingly he's now a young white guy?) who pretty much instantly recognizes Sylvia as a reincarnated version of his lost love Kenya. He also recognizes the captain of the ship as a reincarnated version of the man who killed him, taking the opportunity to chop his head off and leave it in Sylvia's bed as a gift!
Eventually the mummy is busted by Kessling's assistant Freddy (Ricardo Rodríguez), but before he can spill the beans Guedé uses his magic mummy ring to basically possess him and use him as an instrument of murder! His first victim? Kessling's associate Craig, whose body he takes over in hopes of wooing Sylvia. As the mummy and his new man servant kill and kill again, top cop Dominguez (Fernando Sancho) starts trying to figure out just what exactly is going on here…
Basically a low budget trash movie remake of The Mummy, Voodoo Black Exorcist (which sounds like a Blaxploitation title… but isn't) is pretty ridiculous stuff. It's fun to see a cast of familiar faces, particularly the lovely Eva Leí³n (from Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll and Inquisition), play most of the leads in the picture. Aldo Sambrell, who popped up in a few Spaghetti Westerns including the three Leone/Eastwood collaborations, in the years before this film was made does what he can to make his character interesting, even sympathetic at times, but the script is so haphazardly written and Manuel Caí±o's direction so clumsy that it's difficult to take the movie very seriously. The mummy is never scary, rather, he's just…. goofy.
Still, as hokey and goofy as it all is the movie is pretty entertaining if you're in the right frame of mind for it. Caí±o, who also gave us Swamp Of The Ravens the same year, won't likely be remembered as a master director but he keeps things moving at a fairly decent pace. Sure, the makeup effects and what not are very obviously brought in on a modest budget and as such, aren't that convincing (particularly when black face techniques are employed!), but if nothing else, this mess is at least an entertaining mess.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Voodoo Black Exorcist arrives on Blu-ray (technically a BD-R) framed at 2.35.1 and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition transferred from a 35mm print that appears to have been in pretty nice shape. Colors are reproduced very nicely and while some shots look a little soft, the image is pretty clean. Texture and depth are vastly improved over previous DVD editions that have made the rounds over the years and while it's still a little rough around the edges in spots, this is a more than decent looking picture, especially compared to what we've had in the past (tape sourced fullframe transfers).
The English language DTS-HD Mono audio track is also pretty decent. There's a bit of hiss in a few spots but it isn't overpowering or distracting and both the score and the dialogue sound just fine. Optional subtitles (with a few noticeable typos in them) are provided in English language only.
There are no extras on the disc, just a static menu offering chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Voodoo Black Exorcist is hardly going to register in the upper echelon of the Spanish horror boom - in fact it's a pretty ridiculous film - but it has some interesting ideas at work and a few neat moments. Film Detective's release is barebones but it looks reasonably good and offers a substantial improvement over previous DVD editions.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
