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.
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
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 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 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 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 directing by
Victor Halperin was very dated but
it looked not too bad. However he didn't
make it look suspenseful as he was
supposed to have. There's many good shots
on the demon's eyes which was an archive
footage shot on Bela Lugosi with
featured extra's as soldiers acting
expressionless standing there or walking
in for the kill.
There's a nice strong dialogue between Dorothy
Stone and Dean Jagger on
their doubts of getting married but are
convinced that they loved one another in
which the direction on this showed great
chemstry on the two of them.
There's a good moment with the main cast
at a banquet as well as nice shots on bit
part actress Sana Rayya as a
dancer performing.
We spot some not so bad shots with Jagger
following Teru Shimada 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 dialogue between Jagger
acting a little nuts towards Shimada with
using his formula on him and a nice close
up shot on Shimada 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 Roy
D'Arcy acting tempting towards Jagger
on working together to summon up the
Prince of Darkness which I found was one
of the best directions as the two looked
nicely evil with their discussions.
We have a nice strong dialogue with Robert
Noland towards Stone
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 Jagger
looking paranoid as well as effects on
Lugosi's demonic eyes too.
There's many good shots lead by Shimada
leading the featured extra's as soldiers
smashing into the mansion and destroying
anything in their path.
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.
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