From the director of White Zombie
During World War I, an oriental preist is accused of using an army of unstoppable robot soldiers a.k.a. “zombies” during battle, only to be sentenced to life in prison for possessing the knowledge to turn people into zombies. However, because this knowledge to turn people into your own personal slave is quite valuable, the priest is soon killed in an attempt to obtain the secret of the zombies. Then years later after the war is over, an archeological expedition is sent to Angkor Cambodia, to find the secret and make sure that it never fall into the wrong hands.
Never judge a book by it's cover... unless it has an evil looking goatee.
First, lets just be clear, when we are talking about zombies before 1968 when Night of the Living Dead came out, we are referring to the Voo-doo style zombies, which are mindless living beings usually controlled by a master of some sorts. This style zombie was first seen and made popular by the movie White Zombie, also created by Victor Halperin. You could even say that Revolt of the Zombies is a follow up to his original master piece.
And though this movie is certainly no White Zombie, nor really mainly about zombies, it’s more of a story about love, heart break, jealousy, revenge, and …well, zombies. You see, during the expedition to Cambodia, we see the involvement of a young couple about to get married, but when a more rugged and alpha man joins the team, our fair maiden begins to swoon in the other direction. And this is what the movie is really about, a rage fueled love triangle.
"Well golly, I just love a man who wants to take over the world."
So what does the man on the losing end of the stick do? What any other jealous ex fiancee would do, learn the secret of the zombie and impress your ex girlfriend by enslaving the human race to do your personal bidding. Now I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty darn impressed. Unfortunately, the plan only causes her to resent him further, ya know, for enslaving her father and boyfriend… sheesh, women.
I won’t give away the ending too much, but since it’s unlikely that you’ll watch this piece of crap zombie movie anyways, lets just say that our master of the zombies makes a bold play to give up his power if only the fair maiden will love him. To say the least, the zombies revolt. Opps.
This dude was Breaking Bad before it was cool...
I wanted to like this classic horror movie, hoping it would live up to the standard of White Zombie, but it just didn’t do it for me. There was way too much drawn out 30s style drama that I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open. At least in White Zombie we got to see a lot of Zombie action, but not here, no, we only see several brief moments of zombisim and it only amounts to a couple of dudes standing still, staring off into nothingness.
On the 50 Horror Classics movie pack rating scale, I’ll have to give Revolt of the Zombies a low “D” for its boring dialogue, no action, and very little zombies, even if they are the voo-doo kind.
Fun Fact:
The mysterious eyes that fade in and out on the screen through-out the movie, which are used to represent the master of the zombies at work, was actually archive footage of Bela Lugosi’s eyes from the 1932 White Zombie movie.
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