And we’re not too proud of it.” They are sacrificing their daughters to some sort of monster called the Evil One, with whatever pieces that are left are then thrown into the waters off the island. They soon find out that it is a victim of a sacrifice, and that the small village has ‘returned to ways of our ancestors. Right when they arrive, they witness a strange funeral, where the deceased seems to be in pieces. But the real star here is John Ashley, who would appear in all three of the Blood Island films, as well as making quite a few more titles over there.Īshley plays a member of the Peace Corps, who arrives on the island to help them make progress with their farming, education, and the likes. Joining him on his trip to the island is a scientist (Taylor) and his wife (Hills), who is there to study the possible effects from some atomic testing that was done near the island some time ago. While she is not Meryl Streep, she was most likely hired for her looks and a couple of other assets. Hills (real name Beverly Powers), had appeared in high profile pictures like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, as well as Roger Corman’s Comedy of Terrors and even with Elvis in Kissin’ Cousins. But no matter what he was appearing in, or the budget, Taylor always gave it his all and took his roles very seriously. But that was years ago and now he was appearing in low budget fare like this one, as well as soon to be appearing in Al Adamson in features like Satan’s Sadist and Brain of Blood. Kent was a big name at one point in his career, starring in more than a couple of popular TV series. But here in Brides, we have Kent Taylor, Beverly Hills, and John Ashley. But one thing with this title that was different with the movies usually being made there, this one had some American stars as the leads, where they usually used local actors, like Eddie Garcia or Ronald Remy. Made in 1968, it was followed up by Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968) and then Beast of Blood (1970). While Brides isn’t really connected to Mad and Beast, they are all set on place known as Blood Island. Each film was made in the Philippines, directed by Romero and de Leon, while the last one was directed by Romero alone. So the idea to come up with more movies with Blood in the title became the goal….and a short time later, we get Brides of Blood, the first entry in what would become known as the Blood Island trilogy. They bought and re-titles some older Pilipino pictures like Terror is a Man, which they re-titled Blood Creature, and Blood is the Color of Night now being called The Blood Drinkers, and Curse of the Vampires was changed to Blood of the Vampires, which were doing really well. They had started making war and combat films, but Sam Sherman suggested to them that horror pictures always did well at the drive-ins and that they should make move into that genre. In the ’60s, Romero was working with Hemisphere Pictures out of New York. By the time Romero was 22, he had directed his first film. After a story he wrote when he was 16, it got the attention of de Leon, who contacted Romero to see if he’d be interested in joining the film business, which he promptly did. Eddie Romero was a young kid working as a writer, haven being first published when he was only 12 years old. ![]() Director de Leon became one of the leaders in the Philippine movie business, starting as an actor before going behind the camera. The island where this scientist was doing his nefarious deeds was called Isla de Sangre…better known as Blood Island. In 1959, a film called Terror is a Man was made, directed by Gerardo de Leon, which was sort of a take-off on H.G. And of course, making horror films was something they dabbled in, just like here in the states. In the ’30s, there were five major studios running there. But they had been making movies there since the beginning of cinema itself. When thinking of a country churning out films, one doesn’t usually think of the Philippines. Starring John Ashley, Kent Taylor, Beverly Hills (Beverly Powers), Eva Darren, Mario Montenegro Directed by Eddie Romero & Gerardo DeLeon
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