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The Curse of Simba

Curse of the Voodoo
Lion Man / Voodoo Blood Death

UK 1965
produced by
Richard Gordon, Kenneth Rive for Gala Worldfilm, Gordon Films
directed by Lindsay Shonteff
starring Bryant Haliday, Dennis Price, Lisa Daniely, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Mary Kerridge, John Witty, Jean Lodge, Beryl Cunningham, Danny Daniels, Dennis Alaba Peters, Tony Thawnton, Michael Nightingale, Nigel Feyistan, Louis Mahoney, Andy Meyers, Jimmy Feldgate, the Bobby Breen Quintet
written by Tony O'Grady, Leigh Vance, music by Brian Fahey, nightclub music by the Bobby Breen Quintet

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Big game hunter Mike Stacey (Bryant Haliday) has shot a lion in deepest Africa ... which wouldn't be too big news, 'cause basically that's what big game hunters tend to do on a long day, but he has shot the lion in Simbaza country, and for the Simbazas, lions are sacred animals ...

The very night of Stacey's big kill, a delegation of Simbaza's show up and curse him ...

The very next day, Stacey, his trusted bearer Saidi (Dennis Alaba Peters) and his guide Lomas (Dennis Price) drive back to civilisation ... when Saidi, influenced by some hoodoo, tries to stab Stacey, who is only saved thanks to the timely intervention of Lomas, who chases Saidi away - right into the arms of the Simbazas, as we soon learn, who use him as a living voodoo doll, to have their revenge on Stacey.

Stacey meanwhile returns to London and tries to mend his relationship wioth his estranged wife Janet (Lisa Daniely), who strongly disapproves of his continuous hunting expeditions. And thus, Janet gives him the cold shoulder at first, which leads Stacey to heavily drinking. ... and it starts him to hallucinate, like hearing lions roar in the middle of London when on a stroll one night (it later turns out that he was just walking by the zoo) and starting to believe he is followed by Simbaza warriors - which leads to a hilarious scene where two Simbaza tribesmen in full native attire and warpaint hunt Stacey through a typical London park with its carefully mowed lawn and the typical English fog ...

Now the hallucinations would be bad enough, but the fact that Stacey's wound from a fight with the lion that started it all breaks open again is really worrying. At this point, Janet decides to stand by her man after all, and she virtually won't leave his bedside no more. Then she learns from an anthropologist (Louis Mahoney) that the curse can only be lifted if Stacey kills the man who cursed him ... and thus, the weakened Stacey goes back to Africa on a manhunt, and soon he has decimated the Simbaza tribe by the dozen ... only the man who cursed him is not among the dead, and Stacey has already run out of bullets. Finally though, Stacey uses his Jeep as an offensive weapon against exactly that man, and bingo, the Simbaza's run over, the white man is saved.

 

This is actually a pretty poor picture: To cut costs, the entire film - including the jungle scenes but excluding the stock footage, naturally - was filmed in Great Britain, and it shows: The British countryside, idyllic as it may seem, is a poor substitute for the African jungle. To cut costs even more, several unnecessary scenes are padded out beyond belief, like an airplane taking off, a weak nightclub act featuring Beryl Cunningham, a walk through the park when Stacey hears the lion roars (which could have been a very creepy scene was it not for an uninteresting direction and an inappropriate musical score), and the like.

The main problem of the film though is with the script itself: The main character, Stacey is a rather unlikeable racist and arrogant drunkard, who ultimately doesn't even refrain from genocide just to lose his hallucinations - actually there are points in this film where one can't help but thinking his fate served him right. Then there's the whole unnecessary subplot about his estranged wife which hardly brings the story along and is not in the least interesting - and on top of that it makes little sense that she comes back to him only after she has found out he is a hallucinating drunkard. And then of course there's the fact that the shocks of the film are highly repetitious after a while: When Stacey first sees the Simbaza in London, that is kind of creepy, but after the third or fourth time the only reaction these scenes genreate are "oh, him again", especially since the Simbaza doesn't really do anything menacing ...

That all said, Curse of the Voodoo is not (quite) as bad as it sounds, it has some endearing scenes (if endearing for all the wrong reasons) like the above-mentioned scene where Stacey is hunted through a London Park by the tribesmen, or when he pursues a Simbaza tribesman (in coat, hat and warpaint) through half of London, on a bus. And then there's of course the attempt to pass off an English forest as the African jungle ... one can't help but admire this bold attempt. Of course, neither of this is enough to make the film good, in the true sense of the word ... but it makes it fun to watch nevertheless.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

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Robots and rats,
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