Flora (Monsserrat Julio) and Augusto (Fernando Sanchez Polack) are grave robbers. Their latest victim is the daughter of a well to do family. While they are attempting to steal the jewels, she was buried with the young woman rises from her grave, kills them and disappears. This is not the first corpse that has vanished.
Elvire Irving (Romy) takes her friend Dr. Lawrence Radcliffe (Victor Barrera) to a service performed by an Indian guru, Krisna (Paul Naschy). Elvire has become enchanted with the guru and is dependent on his spiritual advice. Radcliffe is a psychiatrist as well as an expert on the occult and black magic. In addition, he is an author and has written books on the subjects. He believes that Elvire’s fascination with the mystic is fine as long as she doesn’t get too serious about it.
When Elvire’s father is murdered, and she is attacked by zombies, she goes off the deep end and begins experiencing vivid nightmares. Deciding she needs the comfort and protection of Krisna she goes to stay with him and his assistant Kala (Mirta Miller) in his supposedly haunted house. Instead of finding solace she ends up targeted as a sacrifice involving a voodoo cult and a revenge plot aimed at some influential families.
Superintendent Hawkins (Antonio Pica) from Scotland Yard solicits help from Radcliffe to investigate the bizarre events. Can they discover who is responsible for the murders and disappearing corpses before Elvire becomes one of them? And what is the secret that ties all these mysterious happenings together?
“Vengeance of the Zombies” AKA “La rebelión de las muertas” AKA “Walk of the Dead” was released in 1973 and was directed by Leon Klimovsky. It is a low budget Spanish horror thriller written by and starring Paul Naschy. Naschy plays three characters in the film, an Indian mystic named Krisna, the evil Kantaka and the devil himself.
The movie was filmed in 1972 but not released until 1973. In 1980 an American release was done that included a William Castle style “fright notice” gimmick where the borders of the screen would flash red when a horror part was imminent.
A lot of people liked it and found it fun, campy and silly. I, on the other hand, found the movie difficult to follow, mostly stupid and somewhat boring. Even Naschy wasn’t thrilled with it. He is quoted as saying, “When I wrote the screenplay, I must either have been under the effects of hashish or, like Bram Stoker, I’d had one hell of a nightmare. Maybe it wasn’t hashish but cheap wine.”
As far as zombies are concerned, the titled creatures are only on screen occasionally and it’s not them that are vengeful. They are also not the best zombies I’ve ever seen. Also, they don’t eat people, just choke them.
A one point Superintendent Hawkins compares what’s going on with Jack the Ripper and John Reginald Christie. Christie was an English serial killer and necrophile who, during the 1940s and early 1950s, is said to have killed at least 8 people. One of them his wife Ethel.