To begin with, it seems that the only thing that anyone’s sure of in relation to this mysterious little film is that its script was penned by Ed Wood. Aside from that, the work itself goes by many titles, such as The Double Garden, Revenge of Doctor X, and Mad Doctor of Blood Island (the latter being an entirely different feature directed by Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero), among others. Now, based on what takes place during the film, I have little doubt that Wood was the man responsible for the screenplay for few others would have the audacity to cross Quasimoto with Frankenstein and set it in the Little Shop of Horrors while ripping off Steve Sekely and Freddie Francis’s The Day of the Triffids from only eight years prior. Oh yes, it’s Wood alright.
The irony stands that none of the titles befit the film for two gardens are never presented (unless a couple of plants a few feet apart constitute separate gardens), there is no revenge, nor does anyone respond to the name of “Doctor X” (that would be the job of either Lionel Atwill or Humphrey Bogart in their 1930’s roles as said doctor in Michael Curtiz’s Doctor X and Vincent Sherman’s The Return of Doctor X respectively). What we do have is one Doctor Bragan (James Craig), who on the sound advice of his assistant, Doctor Paul Nakamura (James Yagi), takes a much needed vacation to Japan lest his anger issues put him in an early grave via a brain aneurysm, heart attack, or flat-out human combustion. While driving from Florida to his New England flight, his finds and becomes infatuated with a Venus Flytrap, which he takes overseas with him. He is met by his assistant’s cousin, Noriko (uncredited), and proceeds to validate his theory that man descended from plants by replicating what he believes to be the genesis of human life: a carnivorous man-plant which he dubs “Insectivorous.”
Undoubtedly, Wood was the one to blame for such haphazard plot devices, non sequitur proceedings, and unbalanced storytelling. For example, Bragan brings the non-indigenous Venus Flytrap (which he declares to be cannibalistic–we can only assume that Wood couldn’t think of the word “carnivorous”) into Japan without so much as a lifted eyebrow from Customs. Only Eddie would place the Biblical story of Abraham killing his firstborn alongside a creature which Troma would be proud of as Gegor Mendel tosses restlessly in his grave. Who else would leave Bragan’s hand enfolded in a leather glove throughout most of the film, having forgotten about his subplot of cross-contamination which causes the mad doctor to slowly mutate alongside his masterwork?
Of course, Wood’s fingerprints are pristine in this regard as Noriko, in her broken English, states to Bragan, “You bring the red to my face,” after humbly observing that her boss is “good, old-fashioned tired.” Yet such dialectic and dialogue inconsistencies pale in comparison to Bragan’s “I refuse the word ‘impossible,’” and “Unless I miss my guess, my creation [which he refers to as “my work of genius”] is so powerful now that it could devour anything.” Colin Clive only dreamed of having such lines afforded him thirty-five years before in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein.
Whoever was behind the camera–some say Kenneth Crane–seemed up to the task of matching Wood’s putrid writing in that we are given a sequence in which a child appears, then is eaten by the Insectivorous, a cow, then the Insectivorous, a car driven by Bragan with Noriko as his passenger . . . who are merely trucking along. Furthermore, no stone is left unturned as Bach’s “Toccata in d minor” inarticulately floods the soundtrack while the worst sci-fi laboratory–second only to Wood’s own in Bride of the Monster–is unveiled.
However, I did learn something while watching whatever the title of Wood’s film might be: I pondered the ironically eerie title of the Venus Flytrap as I shivered at the combination of a mythological female’s name being placed alongside the term “flytrap,” which prompted images that a male would rather not consider involving a zipper. Then an Andrea Dworkin clothing line materialized before my eyes. As a consequence, the film generated enough curiosity for me to go back and research the etymology of the plant’s title. Natch, I’m not going to disclose my findings for if you’re not intrigued enough to find out on your own accord, you always have Wood’s film to make you plunge into your encyclopedias.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
