“Very strange circumstances surround the use of the serum or potion.”
Voodoo Heartbeat (1972) is a regional horror film shot for the local drive-in market circa 1970. The film has its obvious budgetary constraints yet still manages to be effective at times thanks to Charles Nizet’s direction. The film was only recently rediscovered and restored though the resulting scan leaves much to be desired. Voodoo Heartbeat was re-cut and re-released numerous times in the early seventies so the surviving print shows a great deal of decay.
The film follows a Dr. Blake (Ray Molina) who happens upon a youth serum from Africa after a Red Chinese faction attempts to steal it from the U.S. government. Blake, facing manslaughter charges relating to an illegal abortion he performed, takes the serum. Unfortunately for Blake the serum turns him into a sex crazed monster with a literal blood lust (“make my steak rare, very rare”).
The plot is all over the place and attempts to include various tropes and concepts popular in grindhouse movies of the day. However, the emphasis is on the explicit sex in the film. Voodoo Heartbeat is shot and cut most effectively in scenes of violence (the shootout with the Chinese or the climactic boat chase) or scenes of explicit sex. There is a kinetic quality to the edits and some expressive camera angles in these sequences that evoke some suspense and/or titillation.
Unfortunately the bulk of the movie is composed of expositional scenes (“things just don’t look good at the lab”). These scenes, often shot in a two-shot, have almost no energy or drive at all. Voodoo Heartbeat is a slog punctuated by scenes of fornication and gore. But this uneven quality is common in regional pictures so it is almost expected.
