Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann (John Carradine) is a mad scientist, and a Nazi. He is living in the Louisiana swamp with his wife and various zombies that he has created. His wife Lila (Veda Ann Borg) is also a zombie. Max sends word to Lila’s brother Scott Warrington (Mauritz Hugo) that his sister is dead. Scott is suspicious of his sister’s death. He travels to Louisiana with Dr. Harvey Keating (Barry Macollum), a detective named Larry Adams (Robert Lowery) and Larry’s driver Jeff (Mantan Moreland), for Lila’s funeral.
Max’s plan is to make an army of zombies to fight for the third Reich. Unfortunately his zombie wife Lila is showing signs of free will. This is not acceptable for a zombie. Max needs to figure out what part of Lila’s brain needs to be adjusted to ensure that his next subject is fully cooperative and submissive so he can perfect his army. Plus he must deal with all the strangers in his house.
In the meantime Scott, Larry and Dr. Keating have seen Lila walking. When Max accompanies them to the parlor, Lila is back in her coffin. Later she disappears again. Everyone searches the grounds. Scott insists that the police be called. Max arranges for his Nazi contact (Bob Steele) to pretend he is the sheriff so as to keep the situation private. Mantan runs across a dead body while Scott, Larry and Dr. Keating prowl around looking for clues as to what is really going on. Then Dr. Keating goes missing.
During dinner, Scott Warrington (Mauritz Hugo) finds a radio in Max's cabinet, and figures out that it is so Max can communicate with Germany. Now Scott knows that Max is not all he seems to be. Max intends on killing everyone and making them zombie, but Lila has other ideas.
“Revenge of the Zombies” was released in 1943 and was directed by Steve Sekely. It is a horror/comedy “B” movie produced by Monogram Pictures and propaganda disguised as horror.
It is the first of two zombie movies for Mantan Moreland. Moreland signed to do six films for Monogram. This is the first. Although not the star of the film, Moreland does steal the show. Mantan went on to do many more movies for Monogram. His other major character was Birmingham Brown in many of the Charlie Chan films Monogram produced.
Unfortunately Mantan’s career stalled in the fifties when his type of humor was referred to as politically incorrect. Many black actors during that time were subject to this criticism as if it was the actor’s fault that he played roles that were considered “Blackface”. Black actors in Blackface refers to the stereotypical mannerisms that black actors were required to adopt in films. Some of these mannerisms were reflected as bug-eyes, a lack of intelligence, jittery, slow moving, lazy, etc. etc. Actors like Mantan, who had more talent than lots of white actors, were once again stymied in a blanket of political correctness. I prefer to think of Mantan not as a stereotypical black actor but as a pioneer that led the way for talented black actors.
All that aside, it’s not meant to be intellectual and it’s not meant to be controversial. “Revenge of the Zombies” is a light, entertaining bit of silliness that benefits from having Carradine and Moreland in the cast.