20 Exploitation Films You Must See Before You Die

Following Woman Hunt (1972), actor John Ashley and distributor Roger Corman were mulling over their next project when The Island of Dr Moreau was suggested. There was a story that with its jungle locale lent itself to filming in the Philippines, but there were rights issues connected with the HG Wells novel, so they decided on an unrelated story about half-beast, half-human creatures.

The Twilight People’s antagonist is Matt Farrell, a “soldier of fortune” who’s kidnapped while skin-diving and forced to become a test subject for Dr Gordon (Charles Macauley). Like any self-respecting mad scientist, Gordon has a comely daughter (Pat Woodell), a psychotic henchman (Jan Merlin) and a cellar full of “experiments”, including an antelope man, a wolf woman and a bat man. Naturally, they escape and….well, you know the drill.

This was Ashley’s personal favourite among his own pictures, and it’s not difficult to see why. Fast-paced and completely bonkers, The Twilight People just wants to give you a good time, and doesn’t allow the logic loopholes or cheesy monster makeup to stand in its way.