Voodoo Heartbeat

Stumbling upon the 1973 movie "Voodoo Heartbeat" (aka "The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake") by random chance here in 2024, I opted to sit down and watch it on account of it being a movie that I had never heard about or watched, obviously. In fact, I wasn't sure what I was in for here, so I sat down to watch director Charles Nizet's movie with no expectations and an open mind.

Writers Charles Nizet and Vernon Broadrick put together a script that failed to capture my interest, much less actually hold my interest throughout the course of the movie. And I have to say that I ended up giving up 20 minutes into the ordeal. But by then director Charles Nizet spent an insane amount of time on showing virtually nothing except robed people wandering around, followed by a naked orgy. There was nothing resembling a storyline or narrative here.

I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress that starred in the movie. And truth be told, that is actually something that I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie.

"Voodoo Heartbeat" was a dumpster fire of a movie, and it is definitely not one that I will be returning to attempt finish watching. An all-time low even for a sexploitation movie.

My rating of "Voodoo Heartbeat" lands on a one out of ten stars.

This odd little movie offers up elements of 60s spy thriller, science gone amok, gore, sexploitation, and mondo all rolled into an unweidly package. Tossed in are some of the most amateur actors you'll ever see. Their deliveries range being so wooden it feels surreal to so overly-dramatic it breaks the scene. But the bad acting crowns are easily reserved for the actors in this who can't even get through their lines without stuttering or otherwise mangling them. Additionally the dialog these people are delivering is quite often ludicrous, with many lines feeling so unnatural that it feels like aliens wrote the script. I will say that this is not a fast paced movie, its enjoyment almost entirely hinges upon if the viewer can handle 90 minutes of bad writing and bad acting. Even among fans of low budget, drive-in fare this is probably going to have a niche audience but I do think that it will have an audience that will appreciate this weird little flick.

This strange, forgotten exploitation film has surfaced after 60 years under the title THE SEX SERUM OF DR. BLAKE. Dr. Grant (Era Dugo) returns from Africa after "risking his life" to obtain a specimen of the "serum of youth," which he describes as the "most unbelievable chemical formula ever to appear on the face of this Earth." In a lengthy flashback, while in Africa he spied on hooded, torch-bearing "African natives" in furry bikinis wandering around what looks suspiciously like the Nevada desert. These women drop trow at a stage bound altar to have group sex with a dying man before they cut out his heart.

Back in the present, Dr. Grant postulates the serum could be used as a powerful pain killer for wounded soldiers in battle, but admit an human experiment is fraught with risks. "Many men have died in the name of science," is the rationale for proceeding. Before he can find out, Grant is intercepted by spies who kill him, steal the serum, but they in turn die. Abortionist Dr. Blake (Ray Molina) just happens along the scene of the crime and takes the serum home with him and inexplicably injects himself. He visits a girlfriend and grows violent, beating her and drinking her blood. "You've got a phagocytosis of the red cells with the white cells," says another doctor, who diagnoses Dr. Blake with vampirism over the phone, and then proceeds to explain how to be a vampire without realizing he's describing a vampire. Dr. Blake kills a few more people before he is chased down by the police. Needless to say, things end badly for the doctor.

Writer-director Charles Nizet clocks a lot of time with scenes of people eating, the aforementioned African flashback, a three-way sex scene that borders on pornographic, people listening on phone calls with no cutaways and lengthy pauses, a dull boat chase, etc. In other words, despite plenty of incident the movie is drawn out and boring, as well as badly acted by a cast of non-actors.

Originally released as a sex/exploitation film in 1970, SEX SERUM OF DR. BLAKE premiered in Las Vegas, and was shown in Belgium, the U. K., and the Netherlands. A few years later, the movie was re-edited, with new scenes added, and released in the U. S. to a wider audience as VOODOO HEARTBEAT. This new version was missing much of the sexuality of the SEX SERUM cut, and was rated "R" in the US. It featured different actors and contained more explicitly horrific scenes, some of which were shot during the filming of Nizet's next movie, HELP ME, I'M POSSESSED.

So basically, "Voodoo Heartbeat", a once lost film, has been found. It was very hard to obtain this movie. Was it worth it? A little bit.

The plot is about a guy stealing a serum, that when injected into a human, causes their blood to rapidly deteriorate, and that causes a lust for blood, which leads to said person becoming a crazed murderer. This idea seems decent enough, but the flaws in the movie ruin it.

So many scenes are painfully overdrawn overlong, and a lot of things seem to happen in slow motion. Throw in a couple of scenes useless to the plot as well, you get a VERY slow-paced movie, even at a short 85 minutes.

On top of that, the acting and line delivery is bad, especially for whoever played Dr. Blake's daughter, but it's not as bad as the pacing.

Other than that, mostly everything else was average (costumes, soundtrack, sets, cinematography, etc.). There is an action sequence at the beginning which was pretty good, but the boat chase sequence at the end was simply dull. Last thing: the blood/gore in the movie looks pretty phony.

Overall, it is extremely slow-paced and badly acted, but it does have some good to it. 3.5/10.