King of the Zombies/Revolt of the Zombies

Customer Reviews:

Neither of these zombie B-movies are about "real" zombies.......2005-05-15

"King of the Zombies" is a 1941 zombie comedy from director Jean Yarborough set during World War II. James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell), his servant Jefferson "Jeff" Jackson (Mantan Moreland) and his pilot Bill Summers (John Archer) are in a small plane that gets blown off course. Picking up a radio signal they crash on an unknown island (there is no money for special effects so the three throw up their arms in front of their faces before a quick fade out to represent the crash). There they are welcome in an appropriately strange manner by Dr. Mikhail Sangre (Henry Victor). Making things even stranger is Momba (Leigh Whipper), the butler, Samantha (Marguerite Whitten), the maid, and Tahama (Madame Sul-Te-Wan), who is not only Sangre's cook but the local High Priestess.

Yes, there are zombies walking around in this one, but Dr. Sangre is also into hypnotism and one of the strangest mad scientist experiments for getting secret information from a person you have ever seen in a B-movie. You see, it turns out there is also a missing admiral, a damsel who may be in distress, and strict rules about how much salt a zombie can have in their diet. As others have noted, the best part of this movie is Mantan Moreland, who walks a fine line as the comedy relief in this movie. Granted, he is conforming to the stereotype of the black servant, but he manages to avoid playing his fright an anything close to a Stepin' Fetchit caricature. If only the white characters would listen to him they would not have problems like having a pistol full of bullets pumped into their bodies while walking around like zombies.

Believe it or not, "King of the Zombies" received an Academy Award nomination for Edward J. Kay for Best Musical Score of a Dramatic Picture (there were 20 film scores nominated that year, including the ones for "Citizen Kane," "How Green Was My Valley," "Suspicion," and "Sergeant York," with Bernard Hermann winning for "The Devil and Daniel Webster"). Bela Lugosi was apparently supposed to play Dr. Sangre, but that would have been a minimal improvement and really would have worked against Moreland's comedy.

"Revolt of the Zombies" is a 1936 film from director Victor Halperin (who made "White Zombie" four years earlier) that actually is set during World War I when a priest (Teru Shimada) from French Cambodia insists his god requires him to raise a zombie army to fight the Germans in the trenches. The allied generals are impressed by the idea and want the secret of creating zombies but the priest refuses to share it and is murdered shortly after being imprisoned. So an expedition is sent to the fabled lost city of Angkor to find the secret, but the problem is that a love triangle breaks out between Clifford Grayson (Robert Noland), his fiancé Claire Duval (Dorothy Stone), and Armand Loque (Dean Jagger, young and with hair!). As the odd man out, Armond discovers the secret and instead of using it to stop the Huns from overrunning his homeland raises the zombies to make Claire his own.

There is lot of scenes where actors walk in front of footage of Angkor and other exotic actions, but mostly there is a lot of talking in this one and giant zombie eyes superimposed over the action. But the real problem with "Revolt of the Zombies" is that it has this great idea of using zombie soldiers in war that gets forgotten once the love triangle becomes more important than the expedition, so you feel like you took a wrong turn someplace in this one. Then again, the whole idea that zombies are from Cambodia, where the Aspara figures, the heavenly dancers of Hindu mythology at Angkor Wat, are turned in zombies, is a step in the wrong direction. There is also some cloak and dagger nonsense that only complicates the increasingly bad situation.

In terms of double-features movies for Saturday night viewing this one is really bare boned. You get the movies, one on each side of the DVD, and frames for the cast, filmmakers, and a couple of paragraphs on the history of the film from an actual film scholar. Of these two bad movies "King of the Zombies" is a shade better, but in the end neither of these zombie movies is really about real zombies (to wit, animated corpses raised from their graves) and that is the final disappointment. We will try for better lucky with out next set of offerings, "The Killer Shrews" and "I Bury the Living."

MANTAN MAKES THIS FUN MONOGRAM FARCE GO.......2004-12-07

During WWII, a Govt, Agent Bill summers (John Archer) is searching for an admiral whose plan went down somewhere in the Caribbean. He's accompanied by the search plane pilot "Mac" (Dick Purcell) and his servant Jeff Jackson(Mantan Moreland).

While searching, their own plane goes down and crashes into a cemetary on an island. They are taken into the residence by Dutch Dr. Sangre who claims to have fled there from the Nazis. He's accompanied by his wife who walks around in a trance-like state.

Not only that, but there's several black zombies skulking about the creepy house that only Jeff ever seems to encounter. It's soon revealed that Dr. Sangre is a nazi conspirator who has the Admiral captured and is using a voodoo priestess to try and get sensitive military info out of him.

Along the way Jeff get's "Zombie-fied" by the doctor in the movie's funniest bit. This film really seemed to be a vehicle for Lugosi in the role of the mad doctor Sangre but Henry Victor does an admirable job.

Mantan steals the show with his one-liners and really brings some life to the film. Purcell is ok as the pilot but Archer is REALLY wooden as the would-be hero.

Yes it is a bit racially stereotyped as Jeff his told that he cannot stay in a guest room and must instead stay with the other black servants. But instead of running it down lets rememeber the era that the film was made in. No one should much feel sorry for Mantan Moreland as he steals virtually every scene he's in.

The film is no gem but has some fairly atmospheric creepiness and better than average Monogram film.

Zombie Film with Humor.......2004-03-17

I thought the movie was entertaining and humorous. It was a typical zombie movie of the era (Caribbean Island with old house,and a sinster character controlling the zombies) with a plus--humor provided by Mantan Morland (he also starred in some Charlie Chan movies).

dull vintage horror movie, but Mantan MORLAND is fun.......2004-03-03

Although I am not a fan of vintage horror films I purchased KING OF THE ZOMBIES because of a very favorable review in a German movie magazine.
The plot has an US secret agent, a pilot and their black servant crashland on a small Caribbean island. It turns out that the island is ruled by a German expatriot, who has kidnapped an American general and uses black magic Voodoo Mumbo Jumbo to get some military secrets out of the unfortunate high ranking officer. Of course the zombies of the title are not the flesh-eating ghouls of today's splatter films, but the living dead of Voodoo magic, will-less slaves of the Nazi, who uses them for his sinister plans. Will our heroes succeed in thwarting the Nazi's evil plan? Well, I do not want to give it away, so watch for yourself...
Despite the unusual storyline involving espionage, a sinister Nazi, Voodoo and zombies, I found KING OF THE ZOMBIES rather dull and talky. (I am aware that fans of vintage horror will have a different view and likely rate it higher than I did.)
Despite the brief running time of a little over an hour it drags in places. However black actor Mantan MORLAND was fun and his many funny lines will make you laugh throughout. While I am usually not into comedy, I found his performance a real joy to behold. Be aware that KING OF THE ZOMBIES shows his age. This is evident not only in the choice of the baddie as a German (owing to the propagandistic needs of the time), but also in a few of MORLAND's jokes, which are of a racial nature (like commenting his appearance, when he looks into a mirror, "the tropics sure gives a man a colour"). Don't watch, if you dislike such jokes. However there is no doubt that MORLAND was a great actor. Were it not for him, this film would have been a complete waste of my time. I also liked actor Victor HENRY, who played the baddie. As usual in these films the heroes are bland and boring.
The DVD is a bare-bones release, with no extras whatsoever. And don't expect picture quality to be as good as of a recent blockbuster movie. This is only natural given the film's age.

Get Zombified With Laughter!.......2003-08-15

When it comes to Poverty Row horror classics of the 1940s, King
of The Zombies has to rank right at #1, personally that is.
Yet King of The Zombies is not really "horror", it is actually
a comedy with Mantan Moreland as the TRUE STAR of this picture.
The Roan Archive DVD edition of this film is beautifully
restored to crystal clarity. Other DVD versions of this film
I have seen were either too dark or the source material was of
a bad VHS transfer to disc variety. Now, enjoy the film.

Average customer rating:

Zany Zombies Double Feature DVD

Manufacturer: Pop Flix
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video
Product Features:

Zany Zombies Double Feature DVD.
Revolt of the Zombies
and King of the Zombies.
Campy Cult Classics!
Just in time for HALLOWEEN!!

ASIN: B000IK6EUW

Product Description

ZANY ZOMBIES DOUBLE FEATURE DVD! KING OF THE ZOMBIES-Year 1936-B&W Zombies stagger around on a tropical island, the creation of a mad doctor who hopes to use them in World War II as the ultimate fighting machines for a foreign regime. Academy Award Nominations: Best (dramatic) Score. Also-REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES-Year 1941-B&W SYNOPSIS-Underpaid Cambodian zombies do a madman's bidding in this shocker filmed on location around ancient temples in the jungles of Asia. Watch for the recycled shots of Bela Lugosi's eyes -- he backed out of the picture at the last second. Both Cult Classics!

DVD:

DVD

DVD