Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie''s plot.
When the makers of 1941’s KING OF THE ZOMBIES couldn’t get their first choice, Bela Lugosi, for the role of the evil Dr. Sangre, they next tried for Peter Lorre. When that proved impossible, they settled on character actor Henry Victor. What they should have done was close up shop and forget the whole business. From start to finish KING OF THE ZOMBIES is a mess.
“Mac” McCarthy (Dick Purcell) is flying Bill Summers (John Archer) and his valet Jeff (Mantan Moreland) to the Bahamas where Summers has a date with a secret mission for the US government. But a storm blows their plane off course and they’re forced to make a crash-land on a remote island where they’re greeted by Dr. Sangre, an Austrian exile. Bill and Mac are shown to their room while Jeff is told he’ll be staying in the servants’ quarters. Down there he meets Samantha, the maid, who tells him about the zombies on the island. Jeff runs to tell Bill and Mac, but of course Dr. Sangre dismisses the claim, and so do Bill and Mac. But when Sangre introduces the two to his wife Alyce, they begin to suspect, maybe not zombies, but definitely something strange going on.
Over the course of their two days’ stay, they uncover a plot to steal secret information to reveal to US enemies. Turns out a few weeks before, another Army plane had gone down nearby, a plane carrying a US Admiral, and he’s being kept in Sangre’s dungeon. When the Admiral proves impossible to break, Sangre decides to use hypnotism to transfer the information in the Admiral’s brain into his wife’s. And he’s using his zombie army to guard against outside forces.
How would that even work?
So what we’re treated to is 67 minutes of two smug white men dismissing the supernatural nonsense from the fraidy cat black man while trying to find a radio they’re sure is hidden on the island, while the wise-cracking black man is chumming up with the black folk in the basement and licking the heels of his white boss. Truly, KING OF THE ZOMBIES has got to be one of the most offensive movies I’ve seen in a long time.
Also, one of the dumbest. Jeff has a one-liner for every situation (“If there’s anything I don’t wanna be twice, zombies is both of em.”), is constantly scared of his own shadow, and too nervous to ever shut up. This movie can’t decide if it wants to be a horror or a comedy, and in its indecision it fails at both. Edmond Kelso should have stuck to writing westerns. Director Jean Yarbrough does his best, but given such weak material to work with, it’s just not enough.
One of the most important lessons to learn in writing is the difference between a story and a vignette. Not every idea has the potential to be a fully-developed story. This is one of those examples. There’s no character development or growth; everyone is exactly the same at the end of the story as they were in the beginning. The situation itself isn’t enough to warrant a full movie--even one that’s only an hour long--and there’s absolutely nothing in the execution that couldn’t have been found elsewhere with better quality. Zombie movies in that late 30s-early 40s weren’t exactly a rarity, nor were war movies. Hell, zombie war movies weren’t even hard to find, so if you’re gonna make another one, you’d better bring something new to the table. KING OF THE ZOMBIES simply combines all the worst parts of those movies and wastes an hour of the viewer’s time. For shame.
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