“Animal desires… Human lust. Test Tube terrors… Half beast… all monster.”
Twilight People is a 1972 horror movie directed by Eddie Romero (Beast of Blood) and made in the Philippines. It stars John Ashley and in an early film appearance, Pam Grier.
While diving, Matt Farrell (John Ashley) is kidnapped by Neva Gordon (Pat Woodell) and Steinman (Jan Merlin) and taken to an island where Neva’s father Dr. Gordon (Charles Macauly) is experimenting, trying to make a “Super Race” by combining humans and animals. His creations are Ayesa the panther-woman (Pam Grier), Kuzma the antelope-man (Ken Metcalfe), Darmo the bat-man (Tony Gonsalvez), Primo the ape-man (Kim Ramos), Lupa the wolf-woman (Mona Morena) and Doro the boar-man (who is shot down by Steinman while trying to flee early in the film). Dr. Gordon wants Farrell to be one of his upcoming experiments but Neva begins to doubt her fathers’ work after a botched experiment on another test subject, Juan Pereira (Eddie Garcia). She decides to help Farrell and the animal people escape. As Steinman and his men hunt them down, Ayesa turns completely savage and is killed. A fierce gun-battle begins, and Farrell kills Steinman. Most of the other animal people are also killed, except Darmo, who is now able to fly and returns to the compound to attack Steinman’s men. Dr. Gordon tries to escape, but is confronted and killed by the tree-woman who used to be his wife. At the end, Farrell and Neva watch as Darmo flies off.
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Reviews
“Fans of ‘C’ movies and drive in drivel will get plenty to chew on here. The first half is relatively slow, but about 40 minutes in the hilarity and poverty row production values kick in showcasing some goofy charm for those who can appreciate this sort of thing. Schlock lovers need only apply.” Cool Ass Cinema
Trailer:
“Darmo the bat is crappy enough to be worth the price of admission all by himself, and he probably gets more screen-time than any of the other Twilight People, even though he’s only rarely the focus of a scene. You have to admire the nerve of a filmmaker who isn’t ashamed to glue cut-up plastic garbage bags to a guy’s arms, and call him a bat-man.” 1000 Misspent Hours
“Any potential this flick had goes out the window pretty fast thanks largely to the film’s languid pacing. Sure, those Blood Island movies weren’t the finest examples of low budget made-in-the-Philippines horror, but at least they had their moments. This one is the pits.” The Video Vacuum
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