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"When he comes too… just give him some hot soup, and no green vegetables of course."
-Dr. Lorca speaking in regards to a patient who has been found wandering around after going missing for 5 years…AND HIS FLESH IS GREEN AND SCARRED!

Romero and DeLeon dash across the water for yet another trip to Blood Island hot for refreshment after the success of Brides of Blood. While Brides… is barely connected if at all to this film, one of those neat swingy banana trees does make a quick appearance. Mad Doctor of Blood Island takes the excess of the earlier entry and multiplies it by ten and three quarters though! Loaded with excessive mutilation, violence, native dancing and intrigue, the MAD DOCTOR is most assuredly making house calls, and you had better pray he doesn't inject YOU with the green blood.
As in the previous film, here we have a group of characters visiting Blood Island for their own reasons. Dr. Bill is there to investigate tales of green blooded natives (oh oh), while Julia is off to find her father and Carlos is hoping to take his mother away from the island. Of course, these three travelers may be the only sane folk around, as they quickly…
Meet the titular Mad Doctor.
Make Whoopee with natives.
Witness random acts of violence.
Find out that all those they thought they knew aren't quite as they may seem.
All happening while our group tries to avoid ending up a splattery mess via the clawed hands of the mysterious chlorophyll monster! Yikes, it's a busy 89 minute long trip to Blood Island.

Charming for it's sheer over the top vigor in shoving the viewers face onto the squishy gutpiles left behind by the monstrous experiment gone wrong, Mad Doctor of Blood Island is happy to toss in the soap opera elements as well. Romantic subplots, sexual innuendo and outuendo and even a bit of intrigue all come flying at the viewer with the same speed the monster uses to swing his mighty green hands.
Z Grade Exploitation at it's finest, right?
While not as entertaining in a classic sense as the previous outing, much of that falls onto the heads of the cast. As Brides of Blood benefited greatly from strong performances, nearly every single word of Mad Doctor is spoken so flatly that the characters never really take hold of the story, instead clearing the way for the true reason we showed up. The films title promises A Mad Doctor, Blood and an Island… not sterling performances. John Ashley returns as the daring hero, but he falls a bit short of daring and at times is simply funny. Seeing him karate chop and blunder about in his fight scenes is quite amusing, though perhaps for the wrong reason. Dr. Lorca (a mad name eh?) is played by Ronald Remy (of the Blood Drinkers/Vampire People)…and let's just say this, he looks good in the glasses. Luckily, the stunning Angelique Pettyjohn is on hand to provide ample flotation devices for the Blood Island traveler. She looks good in a negligee, and her later venture into porn starlet territory, while very welcome of course, doesn't seem as inevitable as it does for other actresses in exploitation flicks. Alicia Alonzo does a lot of the heavy lifting as Marla, the sexy native girl who likes to love and leave and do battle with beasts. But it isn't the actors show now is it? When the monster arrives, he is a vast improvement over the previous Beast of Blood (Island). A ripping and tearing beast with claws and hideously mangled GREEN skin, whenever this mean green machine appears the screen literally throbs with excitement. Well, it really does zoom in and out in Monstervision… This creates an effect. A good effect? That is debatable, but not since watching Bigas Luna's Anguish have I been so intrigued to see a film on the big screen. The gore levels are HUGE here, standing with some of the most violent splatter films I've seen in a few sequences… and for the time it was outstanding in it's ballsy willingness to take monsters to the next level of splatter. If nothing else makes you want to see this film, the splat rating is high enough to make it interesting as a curiosity for any fan of extreme horror.
More great Blood Island Fun!!

The DVD from Image looks very good and the soundtrack is particularly strong. I did notice a few uncorrected Day for Night shots though I have no issue with that, it really just made some images clearer in viewing them. The reds are very red and the greens are very green for all you techs keeping color levels in mind. No major print damage or jumps to be found at all this time around, it's just plain swell.
The extras on these discs are great as always, and Mad Doctor of Blood Island contains another 50 minutes of commentary by Sam Sherman, billed as part 3 of his talks on Hemisphere Pictures. As always he is fascinating with his stories. While on Brides of Blood we heard that Mr. S had tried to get Hemisphere to be The House of Horror (and Hammer took that idea!), in this one a great bit of Hemisphere vs. Toho is related in regard to the use of Green Slime against Green Blood. Watch the movies but be sure to go back and listen to the comments as well. Sherman is welcome in my home any day.
Trailers, the original Green Blood intro, stills, more Eddie Romero interview and even crazier goodies await. Dig in!

"Mad people can be quite unpredictable…"

FILM: 3 Bitch Slaps
PICTURE: 3 Bitch Slaps
SOUND: 3 Bitch Slaps
EXTRAS: 4 Bitch Slaps
Overall: 3 Bitch Slaps

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