Revolt of the Zombies

DVD

Review by C. Demetrius Morgan

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Synopsis

During World War I a Cambodian priest creates zombie soldiers. This disturbs the western generals and they throw the priest in prison, where he is murdered. With the death of the priest the generals suddenly panic, fearing that their enemies extracted the formulae for creating zombies from the priest, and thus send an expedition to Angkor Wat in search of hidden occult manuscripts so they can create their own zombie armies.

Listed Video Run Time: 129 minutes

Actual Run Time: 62 minutes

MPAA Rating: Not Rated.

Cast: Dorothy Stone, Dean Jagger, Roy D'Arcy, Robert Noland, George Cleveland, E. Alyn Warren, Carl Stockdale, William Crowell, Teru Shimada, Adolph Millard, Sana Rayya.

Director: Victor Halperin.

From the intro screen: "Many strange events were recorded in the secret archives of the fighting nations during the World War.."

Secret archives? From World War I? I sure hope Mulder knew about this!

Summary: Here's a black and white feature/short from circa 1936 that combines zombies with warfare. The picture looks pretty bad. Could the source have been a TV edit? Anything's possible. However this movie is worthy of note for two reasons: 1) This was the Halperin brothers follow-up to their Bela Lugosi vehicle White Zombie; 2) This predates the fusion of occult science with neo-pagan folk myth that has spawned the cinematic mysticism found in movies like The Craft or television shows like Charmed. Thus this movie provides a window into an era with a distinctly different notion of what a zombie was. (Herein it's a person under the influence of pseudo-occult mystical voodoo mesmerism slash mind control.)

The Setting: The vicinity of Angkor Wat, Cambodia, circa World War I.

The Story: I could sum this movie up thus: Various factions are vying for control of Zombies- the ultimate weapons of mass destruction- during World War I. The good guys are the ones who want to keep the world safe by destroying the zombies and the formulae for creating them. Basically this is a short allegorical anti-war movie that gazes deep into the dark corners of the human soul.

Alas the above would be a bit misleading. The movie is a pulp murder mystery "lost city" hybrid with a bit of desert/jungle adventure thrown in for good measure. (Or rather makes a low budget attempt at a reasonable facsimile thereof.) It opens with a general berating a captain: "Your splendid service as an interpreter is appreciated, but, when you try to tell me stories of mesmerism, occultism, men without souls, hordes of supermen capable of annihilating armies of trained men you make me wonder which of us is sane."

Though disclaimed as the "rantings of a mad Cambodian priest" the argument continues with a panel of military brass that meets to discuss the momentous matter. Initially incredulous about the report of a pagan priest being able to create "robots" or turn men into "automatons" that make them indestructible fighting zombies the priest is nevertheless imprisoned. Why? His knowledge is too dangerous and could lead to the extinction of the "white race" (they really say that). However when the priest suddenly turns up dead an expedition to "the lost city of Angkor" is dispatched to search out the secret of creating zombie "robot soldiers" because, obviously, the priest was killed to keep the secret out of allied hands. What?

For some reason the notion that someone might be denying the generals the ability to create zombies as weapons of mass destruction makes the generals suddenly want them as WMDs, even though at one point a general was deathly afraid creating zombies would lead to the extinction of the white race! I guess it's no surprise that the military then, as now, are confused about WMDs. From here the movie becomes a convoluted tale of love, treachery, and mind control. Alas no brain munching zombies.

The Characters: Most of the characters are inconsequential as the story centers around veteran actor Dean Jagger (Twelve O'clock High, White Christmas) who is first seen playing Captain Armand- mentioned above- and Dorothy Stone, who plays the love interest. These are the actors to keep your eyes on. Stone literally stands there like a stone staring to the left or right of the camera very obviously reading her lines off cue cards! It's hilarious. Jagger's acting is uneven at best, as the best and worst abilities of the actors in the scene with him seem to influence his performance.

Also worthy of note is the dancing girl. It's doubtful the dancing girl scene was very provocative at the time, which is a shame. Even so the actress should have received some sort of recognition just for managing to get through the scene in that awkwardly ridiculous looking costume. Watch the actors in the scene watching her. They are barely able to contain their embarrassed laughter.

The Revolt: Starts great. Ends painfully slowly. Too, it's in black and white. Some might have a problem with that. Then again there is a too brief sequence with a brave dancing girl and plenty of stilted dialogue that should place this flick in the top ten of the bad movie hall of shame, which makes this perfect bad movie night viewing fodder.

Suggested Game Uses

Revolt of the Zombies might make for an interesting supernatural spy mystery or alternate history RPG scenario. Consider the implications if one side in WWI were to literally start raising an army of the undead. How might the sudden appearance of "super soldiers" that can't be killed affect the course of events? However the best use would probably be to adapt the story to a beer and pretzel game like Ghost Stories and run a Halloween themed one-shot. However the RPG that is most complimentary to the setting and themes found in Revolt of the Zombies is probably either Forgotten Futures IV: The Carnacki Cylinders or Forgotten Futures VI: Victorian Villainy.

Revolt of the Zombies is an older flick from circa 1936. The title screen credits it to "Academy Pictures", which I've never heard of, and that means this is just as obscure, if not more so, than the Vengence (sic) of the Zombies title that is on the flip side of the disc.

Video Quality: B (Terrible source print but otherwise ok.)

Movie: B-

Rating: 7 ½ out of 10 worm infested golden apples.

Perspective: It's Halloween time again. That means PD (wink wink nudge nudge say no more) horror movies will be popping up in various stores all across this great nation of ours and probably across the border into Canada too. But which to pan and which to scan? That is the question.

Sure cable and satellite offer fuller, more watchable, and usually uncut versions of horror movies around his time of year as well but there's a certain thrill to buying a bargain bin title every now and again. Alas all the movies that appear around this time of year aren't necessarily worth watching, especially if video quality is your main concern. That's why I wrote this review. Well one of the reasons anyhow.

On the surface these mystery DVDs are just this side of shady. A double feature from a label that seems to appear only in Dollar Stores? Seems dodgy. And what about that name, Family Value Collection, doesn't exactly seem like the sort of label you'd expect to find quality horror under, does it? But don't let that label or the $1 price tag fool you. At least one of the movies on this double-sided DVD is definitely not family fare!

Negatives: These DVDs are very mysterious. So far I've only heard of them being found in Dollar Tree stores. There is absolutely no information about the company, not even a street address, listed on the packaging nor is any information about the company available online. The lack of contact information and the fact the DVD has "Treasure Box Collection" printed on the inner ring make these DVDs seem very dodgy.

Positives: For a buck this DVD was just too good to pass up. Considering that the Naschy feature turned out to be a rather decent print with nude scenes intact makes this double feature DVD a real treasure box find, pardon the pun.

Availability: So far as I've been able to determine aside of a few random listings popping up on eBay these seem to be exclusive to Dollar Tree dollar stores. Then again I haven't run all over town looking for them so it's possibly the usual suspects might carry them too. At Dollar Tree these DVDs can be found where all the Halloween stuff is in an orange cardboard box labeled Halloween. Other (confirmed) titles in the Dollar Tree/ FVC Halloween DVD line include:

Final Thoughts: Dollar store DVDs can be fun as long as you don’t expect much. But two horror movies for a single green back? It almost seems to good to be true. In a way it is. Bargain DVD transfers appear to come from one of two sources: Videotape, which means old broadcast masters or perhaps a rare ex-rental; or mysterious, and ever so shady, gray market dubs. The cream of the latter crop tends to be sourced from Laser Disc (or ripped from DVDs from other regions) and usually turn up on slightly more expensive bargain bin DVDs and "collectors" DVD-Rs. Or they used to before the whole MPAA/RIAA saber rattling began. Caveat Emptor.

Copyright © 2005 C. Demetrius Morgan