Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 16: Revolt of the Zombies

The Zombies are revolting!

You bet they stink on ice.

Sorry had to do that.

This is a dire and dull film – made by the same folks who made the iconic White Zombie with Bella Lugosi back in 1932. This film does not feature Bella and is really misses his strange mad magic – the lead who finds the formula for Zombies is rather bland  and even when the zombie master doesn’t seem to menacing.

I digress. The film starts in World War 1 – on the Franco Austrian front. For those of you playing along at home the Franco Austrian front in world war 1 was somewhere in Italy in 1917 the Italian army suffered a massive defeat at the hands of the Austrians with the assistance of a handful of German divisions (this is where Erwin Rommel made his name) and in order to strengthen the line the British and French moved troops into Italy.

Anyway at this point the male lead – a French officer and language expert named Armand suggests using what he calls zombies – men who using the means and methods known to a very stiff looking Cambodian priest will be invincible warriors. The high command will have none of – a friend of Armand a British office named Cliff Grayson (well friend is a bit of stretch – Cliff obviously thinks the man’s a wuss) laughs at him saying he’s a real wuss.

And for some reason this leads to the priest creating zombies and sending them into battle against the Austrians. They are unstoppable and apparently impervious to gun fire. The bits where one of the zombies is shot is actually a scene lifted from White Zombie as are the superimposed eyes that you see from time to time. This was a poverty row production in spades.

In an odd link to the prior film the Mask of Fu Manchu – in the aftermath of the battle a general from “the Central Powers” with a very heavy German accent demands that the use of zombie troops stop immediately as they pose a threat to ‘the white race’ – notwithstanding there is a war on the French agree and imprison the priest – the last man – we are told who knows the secret of zombie making whatsit. He is kill in his cell by a sinister figure whose only function is to look sinister – really he has no effect on the plot.

After the war Armand, Cliff and several others head to Angkor Watt in Cambodia to make sure that the secret of zombie making is lost forever. As in most horror films this is a bad idea insuring that someone is going to actually FIND the secret of Zombie making and cause all sorts of mischief.

However we diverge from the scary creepy monster chiller stuff (why? What are you doing?) to indulge in a long and tedious soap sub plot or plot twist involving Armand, Cliff and the daughter of the Expedition’s leader Claire – Armand falls for Claire and they get engaged but it was only done by Claire to make Cliff jealous so he would make his move, which he does and so the engagement is off and Armand is feeling just a bit flattened by this.

This whole thing takes a hell of lot longer than it should and is peppered with non-stop talks about being ruthless in getting what you want – Armand sees himself as a bit of a wimp (as do others) and eventually decides to become ruthless. Or at least he does after he is fired for leaving the post of the exhibition to return to Angkor watt and discovering the secret that they were supposed to find. By this point he is felling rather put out and stats to use the secret to being everybody into his control.

And oh yes – the ‘exterior’ scenes at Angkor Watt have the actors standing in front of screens with images of Angkor Watt projected on them. Yes it’s a cheap as it looks.

Anyway ;Armand is now lord of the zombie (or really hypnotized folks not quite zombies really) but all he wants is Claire’s love. In the final plot twist that can be seen coming a million miles away or more – he, in order to prove his love for Claire, (who really isn’t worth it guy)  relinquishes the control he has over all his zombies – who then hunt him down and kill him. Like who didn’t guess that was what was going to happen.

The movie at 68 minutes is very very slow the folks never shut up and it isn’t even that interesting to look at the actors are all stiff as a board and the phony backdrops are the icing on the dull cake.

Enjoy with some Tai food. At least you’ll get something good out it that