Title: Revenge of the Zombies
Year: 1943
Director: Steve Sekely
Leads: John Carradine, Gale Storm

Favorite quote: “Beautiful car. I drove a car like this for master…when I was alive.”

Thoughts: I could have sworn I saw this film on MST3K during my geek infancy, but I can find no trace of it. If they didn’t do it…well…they passed up a legendary opportunity for snark.

ROTZ strikes me as two separate movies mashed together – one a pristinely campy golden-age sci-fi schlockgasm, the other an attempt to translate the last gasps of vaudevillian humor to film. The result comes across as funny-without-being-funny – needless to say, most of the humor is far from PC, and some is overtly racist. I did enjoy the WWII jokes, though. (Upon finding a skeleton in the closet, one of the protagonists declares, “Meatless Tuesday!” I am so borrowing this expression. Thanks!)

The plot was pretty lame, though. The Nazis are back (the last thing Hitler needs is a zombie army), as well as confusion of the scientific and spiritual models of zombieism. The death of the creator – who formed the zombies via some sort of sinister chemical process – will free his unwitting slaves? Okay. I also find it very curious that only zombies can call their fellow zombies to “life” – might it be possible to read a slave spiritual meaning into this? I mean, I got the feminism part. (In my notes: “Female zombie rebels! Whoo! Go feminism! \o/”)

Oh, and the cure for zombie poisoning? COFFEE. I TOLD YOU. GET AWAY FROM MY KEURIG.

Links: Revenge of the Zombies at IMDB