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Horror     Not Rated

In World War II, during a storm, a small plane crashes in an island between Cuba and Porto Rico, but the pilot James 'Mac' McCarthy (Dick Purcell) and his two passengers, Bill Summers (John Archer) and his black servant Jeff Jackson (Mantan Moreland), survive. Bill is in a mission trying to find Admiral Arthur Wainwright (Guy Usher), who vanished in that area. They are lodged by the Austrian Dr. Mikhail Sangre (Henry Victor) in his mansion. The scared Jeff finds that the place has zombies, but Mac and Bill do not believe on him. Later, they find that Dr. Sangre is a spy transferring the knowledge of the admiral and other prominent persons to the zombies.

A Very strong cast, especially the performances of John Archer and Henry Victor (Filling in for Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre). However the show is stolen by Mantan Moreland in the comedic relief role.

None, its from 1941

None, its from 1941

A very enjoyable old fashioned example of superb storytelling. One of the problem i sometime have with these old movies, it that due to the lack of technology, and the censorship of the day, there is usually not a lot of action in them, and they are completely story dependent, which can often make them drag. This movie however does a very good job of getting around that, as it has some decent enough action sequences, and jump moments to keep the story interesting. It also has very good acting, a great musical score (it was even Academy Award nominated) and a good setting to boot. I also like that while the main character may be a bit of a racist, the black characters in this movie are very strong and heroic, which wasn't exactly the norm at that time. "King of the Zombies" is in public domain, and can usually be found dirt cheap and free many places online, so i would implore you to seek it out.