Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

Primary Genre: Fantasy

Secondary Genres: Horror, Melodrama, War

Plot: After a Cambodian priest sends mindless, unstoppable soldiers into combat during WWI, two friends, Armond and Cliff (Dean Jagger and Robert Noland) who've had philosophical discussions about ruthlessness, join an expedition to Cambodia to find and destroy the method for creating these “zombies”.  Both men fall for the expedition’s leader’s fickle daughter (Dorothy Stone) and she gets engaged to Armond, but Cliff ruthlessly steals her from Armond.  However, Armond stumbles upon the secret of zombie creation and decides he needs some ruthlessness in his own life….

The Good Stuff:  Armond starts out as a loyal friend. After his best friend betrays him, he turns into a beaten burnout.  Later, when he discovers the secret to zombie creation (an ancient drug that grants the user the ability to totally subvert the will of others via telepathy).he becomes a ruthless god. This is the story of how his character changes due to his misfortunes, sudden godhood, and eventual self destruction after he realizes that being a god is not enough.  (See also Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" for an example of what can happen when a good friend becomes a god.)

The Bad Stuff  

• This movie's love triangle is three shallow upper class people talking too much. That sort of thing was a drag in Werewolf of London (1935), and it’s a drag here, too.  Revolt starts out well, switches into a boring love triangle for about twenty minutes, then picks up again for whomever in the audience that hasn't wandered off.
• And speaking of Werewolf of London, Revolt also has an underutilized mysterious oriental antagonist™, here played by flamboyant villain character actor Roy D'Arcy. As in Werewolf, this character also has a similar goal (obtaining a mystic plant) that conflicts with the main character.
• Too much of the movie is static camera shots of two or three characters talking, sort of like if you’d just set up one camera to film a play rather than taking advantage of how a camera can move, and that's something White Zombie had that this movie doesn't seem to have.  

The Who Cares Stuff

• This movie was supposedly a sequel to White Zombie (1932) because (1) Same director. (2) “Zombie” in the title (3) The announcement that Bela Lugosi was to appear in Revolt. (He doesn't, but the movie uses an image of Lugosi’s eyes in darkness from White Zombie to signify mind control.)  But aside from the telepathic mind control gimmick, there’s nothing in the plot that connects this movie to White Zombie.
• Telepathic mind control?  This movie was made when hypnosis worked via telepathy because that's how it worked on other movies; see Svengali (1931).
• Horror movie fans tend to hate this movie when they speak of it within context of White Zombie.  (A common observation: White Zombie is an example of how to do a low budget 1930s horror movie; Revolt of the Zombies, how not to do a low budget 1930s horror movie.)

The Bottom Line: Ersatz sequel to White Zombie. It may have been influenced by Werewolf of London, but not in a good way..