Revolt of the Zombies(1936) Directed by Victor Halperin

Revolt of the Zombies (1936) – Summary/Review

Revolt of the Zombies is a lacklustre and rather pointless zombie movie made in 1936. Somebody decided they wanted to make a film about zombies and this is the result. They threw together any kind of plot that they could just as long as they could use it to get the zombies into the film.

If you go your whole life without having to sit through Revolt of the Zombies, don’t worry. You haven’t missed much. If you still have that nagging feeling that you might enjoy it, though, you can watch it using the player above this review. What’s it about? Okay, here we go . . . .

During the first World War an oriental priest is imprisoned to prevent his secrets from falling into the wrong hands. His secret knowledge is how to make zombies and he has already demonstrated his incredible zombie-making skills by creating a platoon of zombie soldiers. Unfortunately for this master of all things zombie somebody sticks a knife in his back while he is busy praying in his cell. Not being a zombie himself, the poor zombie master bites the dust and his secret dies with him.

After the war an expedition representing the interests of the allied countries is sent to the dead priest’s homeland to try and find his secret and supposedly destroy it.

Needless to say, somebody does discover the secret and uses it to their own advantage. The result? Lots and lots of zombies and plenty of trouble.

So that’s the basic story. It’s a quest for that all elusive formulae for making zombies. There’s also a little bit of a love story thrown into the mix and someone is used and abused, gets tossed aside, and gets bitter about it. That’s it really. Pretty boring stuff.

Now a little Revolt of the Zombies trivia. Footage of Bela Lugosi’s eyes was used for the close-ups of the zombie master’s eyes. The sequence used was stolen from White Zombie, which is a much better zombie movie.

Additional Information

Director: Victor Halperin

Cast

Dorothy Stone … Claire Duval
Dean Jagger … Armand Louque

Roy D’Arcy … Col. Mazovia
Robert Noland … Clifford Grayson
George Cleveland … Gen. Duval
E. Alyn Warren … Dr. Trevissant

Carl Stockdale … Ignacio MacDonald
William Crowell … Priest Tsiang

Teru Shimada … Buna
Adolph Milar … Gen. von Schelling

Sana Rayya … Dancer