Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

   
Directed by: Victor Halperin

Written by:
Victor Halperin, Howard Higgin & Rollo Lloyd

Starring:

Dorothy Stone .... Clarie Duvall
Dean Jagger .... Armand Loque
Roy D'Arcy .... Count Mazovia
Robert Noland .... Clifford Grayson
George Cleveland .... Gen. Duvall
E. Alyn Warren .... Dr. Trevissant
Carl Stockdale .... Ignacio MacDonald
William Crowell .... Priest Tsiang
Teru Shimada .... Buna

Release Date: Theatrical: June 4, 1936

*Images courtesy at: www.publicdomaintorrents.com

 

 

 

Rating:

 

Years after the first World War a wicked man named Count Mazovia (Roy D'Arcy) has his hands on some documents on some formula which can bring the dead back to life as walking zombie's and to do his evil bidding for him trying to create a race of them.
However, a man named Armand Loque (Dean Jagger) is troubled as he isn't sure that his fiance named Claire Duvall (Dorothy Stone) truly loves him since she also has her eyes on another guy named Clifford Grayson (Robert Noland) as this leads him to a depression and losing his sanity almost selling his soul to the devil. He finds his own agenda and plots to steal the zombie-making secrets to form his own army of the walking dead to seek revenge on his enemies.
However these zombie's seem to make their own decisions and turn on their masters which causes trouble for the two of them.

 

There's many good shots on the demon's eyes which was an archive footage shot on the character known as The Eyes with soldiers acting expressionless standing there or walking in for the kill.
There's a nice strong discussion between Claire Duvall and
Armand Loque on their doubts of getting married but are convinced that they loved one another in which the scene on this showed great chemstry on the two of them.
There's a good moment with the main people at a banquet as well as nice shots on a dancer performing.
We spot some not so bad shots with Armand following Buna in a swampy area without trying to get caught but however the close ups on both of them through some swampy water you can tell they're in a studio with a phony background looking like a swamp but hey this was the 1930's whaddya expect back then?
There's a good discussion between Armand acting a little nuts towards Buna with using his formula on him and a nice close up shot on her standing there expressionless which looked not too bad for it's time as he was supposed to have been a zombie.
We have a nice approach with Count Mazovia acting tempting towards Armand on working together to summon up the Prince of Darkness which I found was one of the best moments as the two looked nicely evil with their discussions.
We have a nice strong conversation with Clifford Grayson towards Claire by showing his love for her and trying to act brave and protective on what dangers are occuring which I thought this looked quite impressive.
We spot many good close up shots on Armand looking paranoid as well as effects on The Eyes' demonic eyes too.
There's many good shots lead by Buna leading the soldiers smashing into the mansion and destroying anything in their path.
Bottom line is that this film was close to a bomb but I cut a bit of slack since the performance looked nicely done but the story was terribly slow and not enough horror in it since it took an awful long time to see what will happen. I wouldn't call this much of a zombie flick. Just a demonic hypnotising type and the only thing going for it being sorta like a zombie flick was the people acting expressionless after the formula is effecting them. This film I couldn't find scary in it's time either since it was that slow to watch. A semi-sequel to White Zombie which was a much better one than this. I normally like old fashioned horror flicks as it looked entertaining in the very beginning but it constantly shows many boring dialogues.

Although the acting is dated it looked very good as lead actress Dorothy Stone (Clarie Duvall) seemed to be marvellous behaving charming and flirtatious towards the others showing a nice character to her part and not lacking any moment to what she had to do throughout the whole story.
Dean Jagger
(Armand Loque) seemed to pull off his part well as a charming fellow losing his sanity and turning to the dark side and showed a good versatality to his part in this. He's normally done a good job with any work he's done and this piece proves himself worthy even if the story is a complete flop.
The best actor I'd have to admit was Roy D'Arcy (Count Mazovia) showing a nice devilish attitude plus had a nice evil look to his role in the film. He was very slick and knew how to pick up the pace with what he had to do and definetely came across on the picture that he was not a good person by any means.
Robert Noland
(Clifford Grayson) showed a good serious attitude and knew how to act courageous and tough with his role as the good guy in the film. He didn't do any other on screen projects but he pulled his weight well in this one. He played a nice heroic part.

The music composed sounded very nice with good orchestral playing on the violin music at times sounding sad during the touching moments as well as good trombone playing too for the horrors that's happening.