Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Leofwine_draca VOODOO MAN is one of many horror B-flicks that Bela Lugosi shot for Monogram Pictures in the early 1940s. It has William "One Shot" Beaudine directing, no less, and it features a hodge podge plot about some evil voodoo practitioners kidnapping beautiful young women and holding them captive in an isolated house for their own sinister rituals. Lugosi is at his sinister yet urbane best, as ever, and there are some of those eye close-ups that were a staple for the actor ever since WHITE ZOMBIE. Horror fans get their money's worth with the presence of John Carradine as a simpleton servant and George Zucco as the evil voodoo priest. It's cheap, repetitive, and cheerful, and at just an hour it doesn't outstay its welcome.

utgard14 Monogram cheapie (shot in seven days!) starring Bela Lugosi as a doctor who is kidnapping young women to use in voodoo rituals to cure his zombified wife. The things we do for love! Of the many Poverty Row movies Bela made during the 1940s, this is one of the most fun. It helps that in this one Bela has support from fellow horror legends George Zucco and John Carradine. All three contribute greatly to the unintended comedy that makes this such a silly entertaining picture. The hero of the piece is a writer played by Tod Andrews, an actor who played a lot of roles in film and television but who I best remember from an episode of the Andy Griffith Show where he played a jerk. He's kind of a jerk in this, too. There's also some fun character actors playing rubes that add to the humor. Anyway, this is worth a look for fans of Bela or those who like old mad scientist movies. It's nothing that's going to change your life but it might entertain you for an hour. Love that ending.

JoeKarlosi The last of nine films that horror icon Bela Lugosi made for the ultra-cheap Monogram studio. It's certainly one of the more intriguing in this series, thanks to a twisted story and a cast of vintage old reliable scare men.Sneaky gas station owner Nicholas (George Zucco) steers young women down the wrong road whenever they get lost in their automobiles and require directions at his place. After sending them off on their gullible way, he hot tails it to the telephone to alert Dr. Marlowe (Lugosi) that another victim will soon arrive. The doc utilizes his dimwitted henchman Toby (John Carradine) to help kidnap the girls and take them to his basement, so Bela can place them into a trance and use them to restore life to his lovely but brain dead wife. The method is for Lugosi and Zucco to don voodoo garb and chant bizarre rites while Carradine bangs maniacally on a drum, in an effort to transfer the life spirit out of the hypnotized victims and into the doc's unresponsive spouse.Sounds like a hoot, does it not? This film got an extra boost around the time of this writing due to a wonderful newly restored Blu-ray release from Olive Films. Looking way better than ever before or than it probably deserves, this is a slight hour of absurd fun. Lugosi is restrained and has some emotional moments when caring for his wife's well being, and it is such a laugh to see Shakespearean veteran Carradine making an utter buffoon out of himself. How did he do it? Lord knows they couldn't afford to pay him enough. **1/2 out of ****.

csteidler A car pulls into a lonely country gas station. Owner George Zucco oozes out to greet the driver, a young woman. "Stranger in this part of the country, aren't you?" he inquires. She should not ask him for directions!Yes, attractive young female motorists are disappearing, and it's not long before we learn that they are being misdirected onto a detour that will take them to a spooky mansion where Bela Lugosi is practicing—with Zucco's assistance—some very strange magic.Lugosi has most of the best lines in this goofy but entertaining quickie. For example, his introduction to his wife, who died 22 years ago: "She's dead…only in the sense that you understand that word." (Actually, she's dead in a way I do not understand, since she seems to walk okay but just doesn't have much to say.)John Carradine is hilarious as a sort of nutty henchman; he is in charge of the hypnotized captives and moves from spot to spot in a sort of hippity-hop trot instead of just walking. Henry Hall is also funny as the local sheriff: "Sheriff's job in this county used to be a cinch," he says. "Now it's a pain in the neck"—meaning, all of these missing motorist reports are really eating up his time. Wanda McKay and Tod Andrews are the attractive if rather bland young couple who are drawn into the mystery.Zucco spends most of his screen time in a sorcerer's robe decorated with stars and crescents; Lugosi has one that matches. They look…um…silly. But they appear to be having fun—and although this picture is no great shakes and contains no great frights, it is indeed fun.