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Voodoo Dawn (aka Voodoo Blood)
Steven Fierberg
1990, USA, 83 minutes; VHS
Review by David Clark (1991)

Note from editor: This is not the film with Michael Madsen and Rosanna Arquette, issued on DVD in 2000. I haven’t had the dubious pleasure, but that film seems to be even worse than this one. This particular Voodoo Dawn was released on DVD as Voodoo Blood by E-M-S, which is why this page is called Voodoo Blood. This film may also have been called Strange Turf at some point, though that may actually be an alternative title for the Madsen-Arquette funfest.

In which sinister silent sorcerer Makoute (Tony Todd) prowls around with a machete, looking creepy and bumping his fellow Haitians off so he can use their body parts for his make-a-zombie kit. This is for no apparent reason (other than ‛it’s voodoo’, presumably). Or maybe it’s meant to be some kind of sculpture. Who cares, Voodoo Dawn doesn’t. Two students come into town seeking a third, missing student, look around a bit, and get caught up in various voodoo machinations.

There’s no real substance to Voodoo Dawn. Not consistently, anyway, though there are some brief flashes of political ambition. There is some sympathy here for exploited immigrant agricultural workers, and voodoo is implied to be a product of Haitian poverty (Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean). And Miles, an African-American student from the big city, wants to avoid the struggle in the South. This stuff doesn’t go anywhere.

The characterisation isn’t great, but the locations are good, and despite what looks like a shortage of money spent occasionally showing through, an atmosphere is created. Voodoo Dawn isn’t as bad as many similar films, though it does show signs of having been written by committee, a committee of John A. Russo plus three. Russo co-wrote Night of the Living Dead with George Romero. Voodoo Dawn is based on Russo’s eponymous novel.

I don’t know what the book’s like, but the film is definitely horror-by-the-numbers, a pretty typical straight to video stalk ‛n’ slash (OK, stalk ‛n’ chop) despite being about a sorcerer rather than a serial knifer. It also suffers from a case of ‛I know, let’s go and explore the creepy old house’ and also comes down with a bout of ‛if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids’.

But then, of course, it doesn’t matter how diseased any of these films are. Although VD itself doesn’t entirely lack ambition, these things generally aren’t designed for your edification. What you sleazoids out there need to know is that this particular example is adequately cooked up from budget ingredients with a sprinkling of bloody gross-out scenes and a dash of knockabout comedy, that the result isn’t spoiled by the peppering of plot-holes, and that it boasts a big meaty finale.

So for many viewers, Voodoo Dawn will go down quite well as a late night diversion, after or instead of the pub (and the more you drink, the better). There will not be a VD 2. •

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