From my favorite movies..

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Remember the " Mad Scientist" series of films Boris Karloff did for Columbia studios in the 1930's and 40's? Bela Lugosi did a batch of them for low budget studio Monogram in the 40's.This one is a hokey old melodrama that gets some laughs that are not always intended, and film seems to run much longer than it's just over an hour running time.Poor Bela tries, and Wanda Mckay is pretty,George Zucco spouts mumbo jumbo for most of his time on screen. As for John Carradine,he realises he is in a poor potboiler and gives the performance to accompany it. it does occasionally poke fun at itself. Fair at best and that's being generous.

Dr. Richard Marlowe (Bela Lugosi) uses a combination of voodoo rite and hypnotic suggestion to attempt to revivify his beautiful, but long-dead wife, by transferring the life essences of several hapless young girls he has kidnapped and imprisoned in the dungeon beneath his mansion.While the film's acting is generally not all that great, it is excusable because of the plot (which is decent for the time) and for the presence of Bela Lugosi and John Barrymore. Lugosi is more or less himself (his range is not all that amazing) but it works here.While this is by no means a lost classic, it is a film worth tracking down by fans of Barrymore or Lugosi or those who want to see more of what horror films were like in the low budget 1940s.

Voodoo Man one unintentionally hilarious film done by Monogram has Bela Lugosi a scientist and George Zucco, gas station owner by day and Voodoo Man at night, trying to revive Lugosi's long dead wife Ellen Hall who Bela has kept in a zombie like state. They need the life essence of other young women and Lugosi keeps several on ice, but has to keep getting more. When he kidnaps Louise Currie who is going to her sister Wanda McKay's wedding to Tod Andrews that sets the action of the film in motionYou have to love John Carradine who had one of the great erudite speaking voices ever playing one of two half wit helpers to Lugosi. And how George Zucco was able to keep a straight face while Carradine beat it out on the bongo drum, the magical chant of 'Ramboona' is a great tribute to his ability as an actor. You've got to see Zucco doing his Ramboona chant, you'll be in hysterics.Voodoo Man does that voodoo that we love so well.

Sadly the days when a lone, mad scientist, toiling in the basement of his sinister mansion, could perform miracles over life and death with just a few test tubes and pulsing lights, without thought of glory or patent rights, have been curtailed by the corporate monopoly of science; the simple human desire to revivify the dead, trumped by the thirst for profit. Happily, voodoo has, thus far, eluded the grasping grip of greed (ouch!) and retained its humble individuality.Voodoo Man returns us to that simpler time when science and magic worked hand in hand. It is another absurd poverty-row horror, filmed in seven days, in case you can't tell, by Bill "One-Shot" Beaudine for Sam Katzman's Monogram Pictures. Lugosi plays Marlowe, another mad scientist with another ailing wife. Indeed this wife is rather more than ailing: for 28 years she has been dead, but not in the sense we understand the word, of course. He tries to reanimate her by transferring to her the life force of abducted female motorists. Marlowe has some impressive technology – an impressive surveillance system, a car disabling ray, and some weird wife maintenance machinery. Still, he isn't one of those finicky skeptics who practice science nowadays. Like the alchemist, he recognizes the potential to improve scientific outcomes by utilizing magic.This film is sensationally silly especially given the quality of the cast. This may not be Lugosi's most absurd role; unfortunately, the same can't be said for Carradine and Zucco. Carradine plays Toby, Marlowe's jogging, dimwitted henchman, who kidnaps women and doubles as Marlowe's percussion section. His bizarre performance is only over-cast by Zucco who plays Nicholas, gas station proprietor and voodoo priest. Zucco usually brings an air of dignity to the foolish roles he plays but this one is beyond him. While Toby bashes a bongo, Nicholas, in a cheap college gown and "Phyllis Diller wig," chants gibberish at a piece of string in the name of Ramboonya who is, apparently, all powerful. And, to be fair, Nicholas is getting results until meddling relatives and policemen interfere with the ceremonies.This film has remained too obscure and deserves a far greater audience. Amazing stuff.