Horror Classic 25 of 50: KING OF THE ZOMBIES

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So, King of the Zombies is a 1941 film which features --

Hey, wait a second. "Horror Classic 25 of 50"?! That means I'm halfway there! I've watched and written about 25 of these suckers! Now I only have to watch... um... 25 of them. Bleh.

Last weekend I found out my brother (hey, Jason!) has been reading this blog every week. Jason owns the same 50-movie DVD set, but he hasn't watched any of them yet. He confessed that he doesn't have "the intestinal fortitude." So, what kind of intestines does it take to watch King of the Zombies?

Synopsis
Bill is the hero, "Mac" McCarthy is his buddy, and Jeff is... well, he's an over-the-top African-American caricature is what he is, but he's also Bill's valet. The three men are flying over the ocean, lost, when they receive a mysterious radio signal. Mac tries to bring the plane in for a landing on the nearest island, but the end up crashing.

Soon they find the home of Dr. Mikhail Sangre, a spooky guy who wears a cape. Apparently kindly grandmothers just don't live in old houses on scary islands. He insists that there are no radio transmitters on the island, so they couldn't have heard any kind of signal. He tells them it might be weeks before a boat comes by the island, so he offers to let them stay at his place. Bill and Mac will share a finely furnished bedroom, and Jeff... well, Jeff will stay in the servant's quarters in the basement. Ahem.

Jeff hangs out with the servants, wisecracking and bulging his eyes, and before long he meets some of the other inhabitants of the island. You guessed it -- ZOMBIES! Jeff runs to Bill to let him know, but when Dr. Sangre brings them back to the basement there's not a single zombie to be found. What's going on here?

Matters are complicated and spookified when the gang meets Dr. Sangre's wife, who walks around in a trance, almost like a... zombie? Hmm. There's also Barbara, who Dr. Sangre introduces as his niece, but something seems askew.

What's going on here? Is Dr. Sangre controlling the zombies? What are those drums -- a voodoo ceremony or somebody's band practice? Bill, Mac, and Jeff will have to try to stay alive while they answer those questions.

Is It Scary?
No. I'd say it's more of an adventure film than a horror film. Also, Jeff's presence means there's constant comic relief.

Lessons I Learned
  • According to one of Dr. Sangre's servants: "Zombies ain't suppose to eat salt."
  • Voodoo drums don't sound like Gene Krupa.
My Favorite Line
  • Jeff, when Bill and Mac venture into the strange, foreboding house: "I'm gonna stay right here until I change my mind!"
  • Jeff: "If there's one thing I wouldn't want to be twice, zombies is both of them!"
Body Count
Aw, I don't know. Two, maybe.

Comments
• So... what to make of the racial caricature of Jeff? He's a funny character and the actor Mantan Moreland gives a really good performance. A lot of the lines he's given are genuinely clever. But then there's all the eye-bugging, running and screaming, "I's gonna get outta here!" stuff, which is just uncomfortable to watch. It's just too bad that roles like this were really the only ones available to actors like Moreland at the time.

• Mac tells Dr. Sangre that he and the other two were on their way to the Bahamas, but he says it like "Ba-hay-mas." I've never heard that before.

• Jeff calls Bill "Mr. Bill," which meant I kept hoping Bill would get thrown out a window by a zombie and scream, "Ohh nooooo!"

• As soon as I saw Dr. Sangre, I thought he seemed like a Bela Lugosi character. According to the Wikipedia page I linked to up there, Lugosi was originally approached for the role, which makes perfect sense. If your character is a Bela Lugosi type, why not get the man himself? As it is, actor Henry Victor is not nearly as intimidating as Lugosi would have been.

• Oh, another thing about Jeff. Although he's essentially the sidekick, it seemed to me that he had more scenes to himself than Bill or Mac did. Jeff was the first one to find out about the zombies, and it's really because of him that they get to the bottom of the whole zombie mystery. So basically, Jeff is the real star of the movie.

• During the voodoo zombie-raising ceremony, all of Sangre's servants and zombies were chanting something. It sounded like "Oh, those beans, cocoa beans!/Baby blue cocoa beans!/Rock my soul, cocoa beans!/ZOMBIE!/I eat cocoa, I eat cocoa!" But that's probably not what they were saying.

• I kind of, um, fell asleep during this movie. But I didn't miss much.

Letter grade for King of the Zombies: C

Next film in the 50-movie set: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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