Revenge of the Zombies

A pretty ordinary cheapie from Monogram Studios that begins with some promising atmosphere and visual style, but ultimately deteriorates with a lot of talk and some lame attempts at comic relief by black funny-man Mantan Moreland, who's not so humorous this time around.

A very youthful John Carradine plays it surprisingly low-key as an unconvincing Nazi scientist trying to create an army of non-scary zombies to fight for the Germans. He even turns his own wife into one of them, the fiend. These living dead sleepwalkers are more like what you'd call the "marching dead" as they step about in silly and perfect militaristic formation, like mindless robots. Those viewers unfamiliar with "pre-Romero" zombie movies are bound to be left especially stumped.

** out of ****