It is astonishing that the people behind one of the best films I’ve ever seen could also be responsible for one of the worst. After discovering the gem that is White Zombie I had high expectations of the Halerpin brothers’ follow-on, Revolt of the Zombies. Everything about it feels wrong, from the plot and pacing right through to the editing and casting. Though it was made four years after White Zombie it feels the more anachronistic of the two, and the Halperins seem to have forgotten everything that made their earlier offering the enduring classic that it is today.
First up, the acting in Revolt has to be some of the worst I’ve ever encountered on film. After ten minutes it becomes apparent that we can expect nothing from the leads – Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone – and the only character with even the faintest hint of intrigue about him is (with Roy D’Arcy shining in the role) criminally underused. The script is truly awful, feeling as though it has been tacked together by rummaging around at the bottom of a shredder and gluing together the remnants of better movies. The Halperins clearly didn’t really care about the story as such, and contented themselves with devising a plausible scenario on which to ground a White Zombie follow-up. There are some moments of promise here, with the Cambodian mythology scenes offering the briefest moment of hope to those looking for a continuation of the excellent work the Halperins did in establishing the terror of black magic in White Zombie. This is quickly trodden underfoot though, and the heavy-handed love tryst that provides the sedentary core of the story resurfaces. What’s worse is that it’s obvious that the Halperins are trying to emulate the success of their earlier classic by transplanting sections of it directly into Revolt (most obviously in the superimposing of Lugosi’s eyes during the trance scenes); the jilted lover act premise is at the heart of this, but unlike White Zombie there isn’t enough of an internal narrative in Revolt to sustain the leaps of faith necessary for audience engagement.
Lasting only 64 minutes, Revolt of the Zombie feels like an interminable ordeal. The acting is so bad that it transcends ineffectual and becomes genuinely off-putting. Once this happens the threadbare script provides no safety net, and the pointlessness of the plot becomes inescapable. I can’t blame the Halerpins for wanting to cash in on their White Zombie success, but it’s such a shame that they didn’t use the opportunity to develop on the themes that made the original so captivating. Definitely one to avoid.