Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

I found Revolt of the Zombies buried on a horror movie compilation DVD I bought several years ago. Not knowing anything about it, I popped it into my DVD player and watched it. Afterwards, I did a little research and found out that it was originally conceived as a sequel to 1932’s White Zombie, which starred Bela Lugosi. A legal battle prevented the film from being promoted as such and, possibly, to have other references to that film removed. That might explain why the script kept referring to events that it never bothers to show. (Although, the movie does retain several close-up shots of Lugosi’s eyes.) In any event, there’s no need to know what happened in White Zombie to understand what’s going on here. Not that there’s much to understand.

The movie opens with a title card that tells a tale from “The World War” (World War I, aka The Great War, which had taken place 19 years before the movie’s release, which was 3 years prior to World War II.) Apparently, a division of French-Cambodian troops showed up at the Franco/Austrian border with superhuman strength. A Cambodian priest said to be responsible for controlling the minds of said soldiers is captured. Since he will not divulge the secret of the mind control, he is sentenced to life imprisonment. He is soon murdered by General Mazovia (Roy D’Arcy,) who manages to make off with a parchment that contains at least part of the secret.

The Allied powers that imprisoned the priest also want the secret of mind control for themselves. So, they send an expedition to Angkor, including Louque (Dean Jagger), Grayson (Robert Noland), and Claire (Dorothy Stone), to try to find it. Louque is a rather timid man who has trouble with assertiveness. Grayson is a go-getter who encourages his friend Louque to gain some confidence and go after what he really wants in life. Trouble starts when Louque falls in love with Claire. Grayson, too, has eyes for her. Somehow, Louque manages to get engaged to Claire.

After an accident injures some expedition members, Claire finds comfort in Grayson’s arms rather than Louque’s. Enraged, Louque breaks off the engagement but swears he still loves Claire. He throws himself into his work and discovers the secret of mind control on his own. Now, with the power of hypnosis at his disposal, he orchestrates a way to get Claire back.

Oh, you’re waiting to hear where the zombies come in? Well, first, they’re not really zombies. The movie also refers to them as robots and automatons. They’re really just hypnotized people who do the bidding of the person who controls them. They’re not the modern flesh-eating zombies we usually see today. And they’re not even the voodoo zombies that appeared in movies before George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. And, honestly, they’re really an afterthought here.

Revolt of the Zombies is less about zombies and more about a jilted lover looking for revenge. Even at slightly longer than an hour, it feels like it runs for twice that. Much of the acting comes from the silent film school of emoting through body language rather than dialogue. And, well, the dialogue is best unheard since it’s typically dreadful.

The movie fell into the public domain so finding it is easy but finding a copy that doesn’t look terrible might prove challenging. My advice is to simply not bother.