Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

Cast:

Dorothy Stone is Claire Duval
Dean Jagger is Armand Louque
Roy D'Arcy is Col. Mazovia
Robert Noland is Clifford Grayson
George Cleveland is Gen. Duval

What the box says:

Count Mazovia (Roy D'Arcy) has aspirations of world domination. Using a secret formula that can turn men into zombies, he creates a race of slave laborers. An expedition is sent to the ruins where Mazovia's activities are based in order to put an end to his devilish plans. Armand (Dean Jagger), one of the members of the expedition, has his own plans however, and determines to create his own army of zombies.

Plot:

General Duval cannot believe when he is told about a platoon of zombies. Lt. Armand Logue tells a friend about how zombies built Angkor in Thailand. On the frontlines we see the superimposed eyes of Bela Lugosi as troops are unable to stop the zombies who keep marching at them.

Apparently, the military is worried about zombie soldiers. Keyung, the zombie creator is arrested to be placed in confinement to be kept from any more zombie creation. In his cell, Keyung is stabbed by the nefarious Colonel Mazokia who steals some cloth with various symbols on it.

The military learns of Keyung’s death. Now, they worry about how to create zombies.

Military people talk with Claire, General Duval’s daughter. Clifford talks with Claire. Natives dancing for the white invaders ensue. Engagement party is announced. Claire has agreed to marry Clifford.

Archeological work ensues. A scaffold collapses, Clifford rushes to knock Claire to safety. Later, Claire talks about Love with Armand.

Armand pines for Claire who is dancing with Clifford.

Back at his research, Armand realizes the secret to zombie creation is back at Angkor. Back in the ruins, Armand doesn’t realize that Mazokia is spying on him. Armand follows a native priest into the swamp where a tablet is hidden. Armand finds it and a series of hieroglyphics on the wall.

Back at the base, Armand is chewed out by his superiors and fired because of neglecting his work and returning to the ruins. At his lab, Armand mixes some chemicals together and test his zombie formula on a servant. Superimposed Bela Lugosi eyes ensue.

Armand talks with McDonald who mentions that Clifford will soon be married. He’ll take care of that problem.

Armand uses the superimposed eyes of Bela Lugosi to control General Duval who sends Clifford on a mission for several weeks which will delay the wedding.

Later, in the lab, Mazokia meets with Armand. The evil colonel wants the power to control minds of men, too. Superimposed eyes of Bela Lugosi ensue, the servant kills Mazokia.

Superimposed eyes of Bela Lugosi resumes, and Armand seizes control of the army and various scientists.

At a camp, Claire is told that Armand controls an army of zombies and must escape with Clifford. Armand appears and talks with her about love, again. Later, Claire is with Clifford. The Superimposed eyes of Bela Lugosi control Clifford now…

McDonald tells Armand he is wrong to get Claire through zombies. He can’t control others to love him, etc…I guess that is a moral of the movie. For some reason, Armand cannot grasp that fact.

Claire is about to call it a night when Armand appears. They’re married? She knows how he is controlling her father, etc…Armand has the brilliant idea if he frees everyone that will show how much he loves her and she in turn will reciprocate.

Clifford, scientists, the army awaken. The native troops decide the best way to keep Armand from controlling them again is lynch him.

Revolting natives storm the castle like their European cousins would do in a Frankenstein movie.

As Armand professes his love for Claire, the natives get closer. He explains how the great zombie master freed his zombies to win the love of a woman, too. They hear the natives approach.

The natives fill Armand with more lead than a pencil.

Clifford finds Claire and embraces her.

McDonald and the others gather around and grasp the moral of using power to control others is wrong or something like that.

What I say:

If Revolt of the Zombies should seem familiar to White Zombie, there is a good reason for it. The same producer and director. It also seems to have a fair chunk of the exact same story with one terrible flaw: no Bela Lugosi. To be fair, Bela does have a cameo in this movie. Every time the superimposed eyes show up, those optical receptacles belong to the far more entertaining Lugosi. So, Ed Wood may have only used 3 days worth of film footage of Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space, the Halperins, prodeucer and director of this movie, continually used the superimposed creepy eye gag repeatedly.

Zombies used to be related to voodoo before George Romero took them to a whole new level. I am a bit confused by the notion that voodoo control of zombies was a big thing in Southeast Asia. Guessing that just having the movie set in the Carribbean would make Revolt of the Zombies seem too much like White Zombie which is understandable with the Halperins who made the Lugosi move. Though zombies are re-animated dead, controlling the minds of living people aren't zombies.

It could be said that I'm focusing too much on White Zombie instead of Revolt of the Zombies. Think of it as more compare and contrast as showing what the other movie did right and what this movie did wrong. The real reason is that's a better movie and just would ramble on about it than this one...Bela Lugosi as bar sinister zombie master compared to Armand or even Mazokia who seem more like the angry clerk at McDonald's blaming the world not falling down and realizing their greatness.

Computer difficulties kept me from watching this over a short period of time, and I refused to rewatch it. Frankly, Revolt of the Zombies is quite a dragging movie. I stumbled across a far worse movie that this just lately which has sort of made Revolt of the Zomibes not quite as bad but still faint, faint praise.

Most of the characters seemed completely interchangeable especially the protagonist and antagonist. The hero and the villain I only could tell them apart by a couple of facts. When one of them talks about doing whatever it takes to get what he wants, then I could realize he must be the villain. Evil dude would use Bela Lugosi's evil superimposed eyes to control people plus continually rambling on about doing whatever it took to get what he wanted. The hero had to be one of the blandest heroes in any movie.

We had another evil guy, Colonel Mazokia, that just lurked in the shadows and was expecting him to do something insidiously evil and was disappointed when he was killed almost as a second thought. I guess, it would have been too complicated for Evil Boy Armand to dying keeping Mazokia from using the zombie secret for his own nefarious purposes. In fact, cutting Mazokia out of the movie could only have made it better and shortened the run time.

Current horror movies include typically force-in bland and useless love stories. Well, Revolt of the Zombies may not have started that trend but it definitely has one of the most worthless love stories. Claire strings the villain, Armand, along hoping to get hero-boy, Clifford, to propose. Well, that sets in motion Armand's determination to make Claire love her though not using the zombie formula especially after his boss fires him for leaving the work site without permission or maybe for taking too many coffee breaks.

The idea that love can conquer all things is a beautiful thought. In movies, it gets to be quite a tired platitude. Evil Boy controlled everyone around except her because he couldn't try to force her to love him. He loves Claire so much he'll give up the power to win her love. Obviously, that doesn't work. It does free an army of angry natives that realize as long as Evil Boy lives they can be mentally enslaved. These guys do what any agry villagers do. Storm the nearest castle and attack Dr. Villainous.

The military aspects are hard to grasp. Apparently, all the European powers involved in WW1are terrified of the thought of someone controlling a zombie soldier of Asians that would be unstoppable. They also decide to unite forces to search and destroy any information about zombiefying anyone. I think my recent review on Adventures of Fu Manchu has a better grasp of Asians in entertainment. If I can't cheaply plug my other reviews what kind of reviewer am I?

Random thought: Isn't voodoo more a Carribbean than Southeast Asian?

Quotable Dialogue
"Dion insults gods wants him to create zombie soldiers."
"The wiggles always want the same."
"An apt pupil, your teacher commends you."
Morals of the Story
Military officers regularly pose as archeologists.
Archeologists must wear pith helmets as part of their uniform.
Formerly zombified natives will always rampage like angry villagers storming Frankenstein's castle.