EDITOR’S NOTE: Revenge of the Zombies was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, December 28, 1963 at 3:00 p.m. and Saturday, December 12, 1964 at 1:00 a.m.
Directed by Steve Sekely, 1943’s Revenge of the Zombies is both a sequel and a partial remake of 1941’s King of the Zombies. Screenwriter Edmond Kelso basically dusted off his old script, slapped a fresh coat of Louisiana swamp mud on it, and handed the lead mad-scientist role to John Carradine.
Scott Warrington (Mauritz Hugo) heads down into the deep Louisiana bayou alongside private dick Larry Adams (Robert Lowery) and Larry’s valet Jeff (Mantan Moreland, reprising his role from King of the Zombies). Scott’s sister Lila (Veda Ann Borg) has suddenly dropped dead, or so everyone thinks.
Upon arriving at the gloomy estate, they meet Lila’s grieving widow, Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann (John Carradine). But von Altermann isn’t just mourning. He’s an unrepentant Nazi working for the Third Reich to raise an invincible, immortal army of undead stormtroopers. As you can already figure out, he murdered Lila and turned her into a zombie, but things get messy when she starts regaining her free will and wandering around the house, creeping out the guests.
Add poisoned dinners, undercover federal agents disguised as local sheriffs (Bob Steele), Mantan Moreland constantly stumbling across disappearing corpses, and a swamp climax where the zombies turn on their master, and you’ve got 61 minutes of pure Monogram B-movie mayhem.
You can watch this on YouTube.
