Before Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Herbert West, otherwise known as Re-Animator, there was Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood! The time has come to revive the franchise that influenced them all. The Beasts of Blood are coming back to the Big Screen.
The Blood Island films are iconic as the original drive-in grindcore B-Movie Monster archetypes. They consist of Terror is a Man aka Blood Creature (1959); Brides of Blood (1968); Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969); and Beast of Blood (1970).
The revival of these Drive-In Grindhouse classics will kick off a year-long, nation-wide tour and merchandising blitz for drive-in theatre and Tiki bar markets across the country, courtesy of Producer/ Promoter David Sehring of Drive-In-Sanity Films.
The Blood Island films will also be coming soon to Blu-ray for the first time from Severin Films beginning November 13th, 2018, featuring re-mastered 4K scans from recently discovered film elements.
These low-budget Mondo Monster movies and creature features were produced by Hemisphere Pictures, who billed themselves as the House of Horror. The films became a worldwide creature/zombie feature franchise around the same time George Romero's original Night of the Loving Dead (1968) hit the big screen. Most were pre-MPAA rated, and dared to push the boundaries of horror with a monster, gore and nudity quotient that established the infamous formula known as the three B's: Blood, Breasts and Beasts.
The marketing and advertising campaigns surrounding these films are just as infamous, and are classic examples of good old-fashioned ballyhoo and showmanship as created by the Mad Doctor of Marketing for Hemisphere Pictures, Sam Sherman. (Wedding Ring gimmick for Brides of Blood, Oath or Green Blood for Mad Doctor of Blood Island, etc.) These seminal Mondo monster movies with their weird "WTF" psychotronic moments influenced popular POST-1970 hack and slash horror franchises featuring undying Monsters, Mutants and Madmen, including Halloween, Friday the 13th and Re-Animator. The titular Beast of Blood himself is one old school ghoul, an indestructible zombie with green blood, named Don Ramon (aka The Chlorophyll Monster) who first appeared in 1969's {Mad Doctor of Blood Island and later came back without his head in the gruesome, over-the-top sequel Beast of Blood (1970).
Made in the Philippines for the U.S. drive-in market, the Blood Island films were super low budget productions made for approximately $125,000 U.S. and featured B-Movie star John Ashley and a bevy of former co-stars of Elvis Presley, including former stripper Beverly Hills (aka Beverly Powers), and two Star Trek alumni, the late Angelique Pettyjohn and Celeste Yarnall. The jungle island horror films proved to be monster box office hits when originally released in the late 1960s during the height of the Drive-In and Tiki craze. Since then, the films have had a successful run in syndication and home video around the world and have achieved a legendary cult movie status.
When the original Beast of Blood film ended on screen, it teased another sequel in the franchise. However, the Blood Island story, and those of its Beastly inhabitants, ended abruptly when Hemisphere Pictures lost its leading man, John Ashley, and Filipino director Eddie Romero (no relation to George). When the two left Hemisphere to start a rival film company, the story of the undying Beasts of Blood Island ended, until now.
Drive-In-Sanity Films and Independent-International Pictures Corp. are planning to pick up the pieces to the Blood Island story, and expand its universe with more weird science, fantasy, horror and high adventure. Practical Monster effects will be employed as the Blood Island franchise will feature more Mondo Monsters, Madmen and Mutants from the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, including the return of The Beast of Blood's undying head.
With a winning formula that has existed in Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy since Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein, H.G. Well's wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau, and H.P. Lovecraft wrote Reanimator, The Beasts of Blood Island will prove that old monsters never die... they always come back. Sehring said this.
"These films were a big influence on this Drive-In Tiki Monster Kid from the 1960s. My company, Drive-In-Sanity Films, plans to produce a continuing series of low budget, short form, serialized features made exclusively for the Drive-In and revival house market. We also plan to produce ancillary VR and AR applications which will embody the fun and feel of the original films and campaigns, with more great gimmicks and ballyhoo conceived by master drive-in showman and Producer Sam Sherman, who is still going strong at age 79."
Picking up exactly where Hemipshere's 1970 release Beast of Blood left off, Drive-In-Sanity Films is currently in discussions with top name genre directors, writers and practical effects artists to bring the The Beasts of Blood Island back to the big screen. Mr. Sehring will be attending the American Film Market to firm up co-production and financing and is available for interviews upon request.
