You are listening to Zombie Strains. I'm John, and with me is my co-host Andy and our producer Brad. We're horror movie fans living in what appears to be a zombie world. According to Wikipedia, over 600 zombie films have been released since 1932. And of those 600, 400 of them have come out just this century. Why is that? To answer this question, we're going to follow the shambling zombie path from the beginning, one movie at a time. Welcome to Zombie Strains. Hello, Andy. Hey, Brad.

Hey, John.

Are you just loving 1930s movies right now?

I am wondering how many more 1930s do we have to get to here?

Yeah. No, actually, we knock it. I think we're having a good time here. And if I were to make one criticism of this movie, it is probably the least transgressive of the 30s movies we've watched. It's kind of tame.

It has been a roller coaster ride, though, because we had White Zombie, which is kind of meh, and then we had Maniac, which was pretty dire.

Yeah.

And then we had Wanga, which was strangely good.

Which was really good, yeah.

And so I guess maybe it makes sense that we're kind of leveling back out here with what I would call a mildly racist film.

Yes, yes, definitely. So what is the name of this mildly racist film we're going to talk about?

This film is called Revolt of the Zombies. And if you were like me, John, you spent the whole movie wondering when the zombies were going to revolt.

But we'll get to that. Yeah, it's strange. It's like the title of the movie is trying to set you up for tension and excitement, but the tension and excitement is really, really at the end.

Before we jump in, let me provide just a little content advisory guess you might say. The primary issue, unpleasant issue to contend with watching this movie in 2024 is just that it's a movie filmed in the 30s and it's set in the 19-teens, and this is the era of colonialism and just general background racism. Because this movie, a lot of it takes place in Cambodia, there is a lot of that colonial condescension and racism that you can expect from this era. So just keep that in mind.

Yeah. We'll talk about it. There's one really explicit racist moment in it, and then after that, it's just nobody thinks anything of having servants that are local and have no agency or power. It's just, you know, bad. Right. Yeah. But we're here because there's zombies.

Yes. And I will say, despite that kind of glum preview, I actually do think this movie has some interesting elements of zombie lore in it. That, like, it does feel like a little bit of a connector between the older films and some of the more modern zombies that we know and love.

So the movie Revolt of the Zombies was released in 1936. It was directed by Victor Halperin, who is also the director of White Zombie. And in fact, Revolt of the Zombies was originally announced in the Hollywood trades as a sequel to White Zombie. But there were many lawsuits over legal rights, including who owned the rights to the term zombie, and that prevented the film's producers from mentioning White Zombie while promoting Revolt of the Zombies. The movie received a certificate from the Motion Picture Code of Authority, the number 2191 if you're keeping track, and it was deemed to have acceptable content and could be released to mainstream theaters. The cast, like we found with Wanga, has some good actors who went on to more famous roles. Bela Lugosi was considered for the villain Luke, but due to either scheduling or budget issues, he wasn't cast. And instead, the part went to Dean Jagger, who is most famous for playing Major Waverly in the Bing Crosby movie White Christmas. He also was in Bruce Lee's Game of Death. So it's kind of an interesting bookend, starting his career with this and towards the end being in Game of Death.

I do kind of love career actors that you... I hope we run into more of this, like a career actor who shows up and the earth dies screaming, and then we watch something in the 80s and there he is or something. I hope we run into more of that. I think that's really fun.

Well, let's run into right now.

All right.

Tere Shimado, who plays Buna.

Yes.

He was in the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. He played Osato, who is the Japanese businessman slash henchman of Blofeld.

You, Brad, we haven't talked about producers' Brad love of the James Bond films in detail, but you have a deep love of them. I'm wondering, did you see him and you're like, oh, it's that guy. Did you have to look it up or did you just know?

I was doing the research in the cast before I watched it. So I saw his name and I would not have recognized him in the film.

Yeah, he's much younger.

He's 30 years difference.

Yeah.

But it was nice to see him still around. The only other interesting cast note is Clare is played by Dorothy Stone. Right. While I don't know that she's done anything else major, her father was the original portrayer of the Scarecrow and the Wizard of Oz on Broadway in 1903.

Huh.

Huh. That's crazy.

Yeah, that's a credible legacy.

Yeah, nice little tidbit. Now, the film was not well received. It was deemed to be far less of quality than White Zombie. And I can't find any box office information as with most films of this era. Right. So we're left to assume it sort of disappeared.

You know, what I'm super curious about this is you said the Hollywood trades, and I just find that fascinating that the trades were around.

Oh, yeah. Variety started publishing weekly in the early 1900s, covering theater and vaudeville. And then in the 1930s, both The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety were published daily.

All right.

I'm mostly intrigued by the idea that you would watch White Zombie and really love it, and then watch this one but really hate it. Like, I mean, they are, from our historically distant retrospective perspective, they feel like birds of a feather, but...

Right. I will say, and we'll get into it, this one, White Zombie, I think, has some genuinely frightening parts to it that we discussed. I don't know that I got that feeling at all during this movie. It's kind of a dud in that sense. Let's talk about the context. As a reminder to why we do this, horror movies are usually a reaction to what the people living at the time in the culture are afraid of. Sometimes that's unpleasant, which is why we do the trigger warning and why we do the cultural coverage. So it's 1936. Germany has just sort of started acting like they might create trouble. They occupy the Rhineland. Italy starts invading places. Japan has already invaded China. They've been fighting a war in China for five years. So there's a lot of war going on. It's still the Great Depression. But the one thing I wanted to bring up and we said there's a moment of really active racism in this movie and I just want to tease it out ahead of time. At one point, there was a character, I believe it's the German character, though he has a French accent. The accents are not exactly spot on here. Do you think he's the German or the French?

I thought he was being kind of presented to us as a sort of Ottoman Empire type of figure.

Okay, yeah, I would buy that. I would buy that. I was trying to tell by the uniforms and they're all very similar. But yes, I think you're correct. But there's one character who says that early in the movie, we must protect the white race and we'll get to that, which is shocking. But what that is driven by is this horrible idea from this time called, that's referred to and please excuse my language, the Yellow Peril. And this is generally a fear that Asian cultures are going to immigrate to the US and sort of take over, but they won't give up the allegiance to their original cultures. So this fear is the exact same fear that led to Japanese internment camps in the Second World War. And it's on full display here. Like the central worry of the movie is that Asian cultures will have this superpower to create zombies and will die before them. And so that's sort of where the racism comes in. Does that sum it up pretty well, Andy? Do you want to add anything?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely those fears are reflected in this film. It's worth noting, I think by this time, Japan had occupied Cambodia, where a lot of this movie is ostensibly set. So not that they filmed it on location. In fact, I think they filmed this in front of a painting for the most part.

Yeah, I read one factoid is they actually did send a crew just to get some background shots, and then they filmed most of it in front of that film. Like they were projecting a film and then shooting the actors in front of it.

Okay, that's interesting. I have in my notes to talk about the very obvious distinction between what's going on in the foreground of a lot of scenes and what's going on in the background. And so yeah, let's talk about that when we get to it.

Real quick, the actor, well, the character who gave that pronouncement about protecting white race, the character's name is General Von Schelling.

Okay, so he's German. I think you're thinking of Morozova? Or Morozia?

Mazovia?

Mazovia, that's it. We need to talk about him. I was confused as heck by him, so you'll have to educate me.

Yeah, we can talk about that scene. I actually read that scene a little more charitably. I mean, a tiny bit more charitably. I was wondering if that was deliberately being presented as the Eastern powers kind of being Nazi-like in their racism.

Yes, I'm not sure.

Probably not.

Yeah, probably not.

Since everybody else in the scene then agrees with this person, I think I can say I'm probably wrong.

Yeah, well, we'll get to that scene in a minute. But first, we've got to talk about the poster.

Yes. Shall I describe what we see on the poster?

Please.

All right. So, Revolt of the Zombies. I guess the first thing you see when you look at this is a Frankenstein-looking head. I wouldn't say it evokes Zombie in the modern understanding of what a Zombie looks like. It's a cadaver-looking guy with an oversized head. Now that I'm staring at it, I mean, is it slightly evoking that he's wearing a turban? Is that?

I'm not sure because there were two posters I saw.

Okay. Yeah.

There's the one we talked about last episode where the men are fighting and then there's the very clear Frankenstein one. But there was another poster where there is a woman who doesn't look anything like the character Claire in her because she's got black hair. But she's standing, a small figure, and there's a looming figure over here with red eyes. And upon reflection, that looks like a Locke with the red hypnosis eyes, even though he's green. So, yeah.

I want to call him Locke too, but in the film, they call him Luke. Locke is a much better name for a villain.

Luke. In all my notes, I call him Armand. So, what are we going to call him?

Let's call him Armand.

Okay, Armand it is. I didn't see that poster. The one I'm looking at it at says, Zombies, not dead, not alive. And it has a picture, this caught our interest when we noticed it last episode, John, in the corner of a very, of a multi-armed statue of a god or goddess that really evokes Hindu religion, which is a big cultural move from Haiti, which is where we have been mostly living in this podcast for the last couple of episodes.

Yeah, that's a weird one for me because first of all, they don't say the word Buddhist once in this film, but at this point in history, Cambodia is Buddhist country largely. And that symbol to me is clearly a Buddhist shrine, but like they never say that word. And I think it goes back to sort of the racist fears. There's a sense of like, there's mystical powers being employed in these countries that we don't understand and they're scary.

Yeah, it seems really jarring. I know we'll get into this in the film, so I don't want to have this whole conversation upfront, I guess, but it seems a little jarring right now to watch them just lifting zombies out of Haiti. It's Haitian cultural context and dropping it into Southeast Asian cultural context. But I guess if you have this sort of early 20th century kind of Orientalist mindset that groups these societies together in the category of, please note my giant air quotes here, exotic or primitive cultures, I guess it might have been easier to buy that, because otherwise it makes no sense that a really culturally Haitian concept is just being dropped right into Southeast Asia.

Yeah, and it's weird because they just take the one concept of zombies from voodoo, right, because there's no voodoo dolls in this movie, there's no, there's none of that, and they just throw it into another mystical religion that we don't understand, right? Like, hey, it's just, you know, lift and shift, no problem.

Yeah.

So.

I want to point out one last thing on the poster. The font for the title of the film is that very bold, weathered, sort of chipped rock looking for zombie, which is the same as White Zombie, and I guess this is more of a question for me to research is, I see that font now as sort of being like a horror movie font. Did it originate with White Zombie?

I wonder.

Or was it around before that?

Good question.

It's really interesting.

And the other connection is clearly directed by the same person, because there is one line that is lifted directly from White Zombie.

Yes.

And in researching this, there are several scenes with eyes that, like, are laid over the scene as if someone's being mesmerized. And according to what I read, those are actually, that's a take of Bela Lugosi's eyes from White Zombie.

It certainly looks exactly like those eyes when they appear in White Zombie.

Yes.

Yeah. I guess one last comment on the poster. It has just been interesting to me to just look at these old style posters of our movies. And the posters are, I mean, few of them have been literally representative of what you find in the movie. And some of them have had, like you said, John, one of the posters for this movie has like the wrong, a different lead actress. Right, you know, so these posters do very clearly convey the vibe of these films. But I wonder when we start to see, I guess, maybe more true to the film posters crop up. So that'll be interesting.

It does actually depict a scene from the movie. At one point, our villain hero gets abducted in the temple and there's a fight that looks identical to this.

Yes, so hey, should we jump right into the movie, John?

Let's do it.

Okay, we've had enough preamble. So let's jump into it. Revolt of the Zombies. John, what did you expect going in? And then what was your reaction to, like, say the first five seconds of this movie?

Yeah, so that it starts with a crawl, an opening crawl, right? Can I tell you a strange reaction that I had that was invoked by this crawl?

Yeah.

Again, this is John and Andy sneaking a history podcast into Brad's zombie podcast. But the thing that struck me, and this is dumb upon reflection, but I was just so struck by this, they make reference to the Great War, right? They're setting it in what we call World War I, and they're just calling the Great War. And I'm realizing World War II has not happened yet, right? I know that sounds obvious, but I am always used to thinking about a world in which World War II has occurred, which had huge implications and restructured almost every corner of the planet. And it's not a thing. Like it's about to happen, but they don't know that. And I think the reason that's important is World War II is... There's a scale, and if I weren't lazy, I would look it up, but where historians sort of measure the most things that most seriously impact society. And on that scale, the top two things are number two, the Black Plague, and number one, World War II. It is one of the historical... And I know I'm harping on this, but do you understand what I'm saying? Does that seem weird to you, too?

No, absolutely. It's doubly strange because World War II is just about to break out, right?

It's around the corner, yeah.

And you wonder if there was any sense of that coming, or no, but...

Right, right. So I'm sorry, but yes, there's a crawl.

Once again, we get this typically chipper music. Again, we've talked a couple of times that they just got pre-recorded music on these things, but it doesn't always fit. But I did realize we were spoiled by the remaster of Wanga as far as audio and visual quality in this one, because it's a little bit rough.

There's a conversation between an officer and a general, and I can't make out a lot of it.

Yeah, exactly. I watched these with subtitles on. We get this opening crawl, and it tells us that this is taking place during the First World War, and it tells us that a legion of Cambodians have traveled from Cambodia to serve alongside their French colonial rulers in the battlefields of World War I.

I suppose that's the big piece of historical content.

Yeah, I suppose so.

Cambodia and Vietnam and Siam, what we know, Siam, what was called Siam, were all French colonies. It was called French Indochina at the time.

Yeah. This is the first and last piece of historical accuracy we'll get in the movie, but Cambodians did serve in considerable numbers in the battlefields of World War I. It calls out that these Cambodians came from the vicinity of the lost city of Angkor or Angkor Wat, which I wondered if this had been recently popularized or sensationalized in Western media, but it had been rediscovered by Westerners a good 50 or 100 years before, so that was a dud of a hypothesis.

Yeah.

We open after this little opening sequence, we meet our main characters. It opens with a scene in an office where our protagonist, Armand Locke, or Locke, I'll call him Armand, I guess. Yeah. He is wrapping up a conversation he's had with his military superior, General Duval. I should note here that these characters are all supposed to be French. Yes. In no way does their acting evoke French.

Correct.

I guess there's something to be said for not trying to fake an accent that will sound bad anyway just to convey the Frenchness. But it does mean that occasionally someone in this movie will talk about those Americans, and then it just is so jarring like, oh yeah, you're not supposed to be Americans anyway.

Yeah. This is known as the Harrison Ford and the Widowmaker foible where you try to do a bad accent throughout the whole movie and it doesn't work.

Yes, exactly. Armand is a military interpreter who came over with these Cambodian troops, and he has apparently been trying to, I don't know if he's trying to warn or pitch an idea to General Duvall, but let's hear General Duvall response to Armand's presentation.

Now, Captain Luke, your splendid service as an interpreter is appreciated. But when you try to tell me stories of mesmerism, occultism, men without souls, hordes of supermen, capable of annihilating armies of trained men, you make me wonder which of us is sane.

So there it is right there.

Yes. So like a lot of these movies, we cut to zombie in the opening minutes. John, do you have any thoughts about this?

I was again surprised because they just jump right into it and tell us what we should be scared of. There are these zombies and they sound more than any other of the older movies watched so far like zombies. They're still not saying they're undead quite yet. But they are saying that they're like invincible and non-human and they're hordes. Our previous movies, there was one or two zombies and now we're... I think this is our first zombie horde that's being discussed.

I had the exact same thought and we are going to see some proto hordes later in the movie. But that was one of the most notable modern zombie feeling elements of this movie is for the first time, I think they're being viewed as a potentially global existential threat if they get out of control, right?

Right, right.

So but Armand's been describing the zombies and they're described as quote men without souls. So this is sounds very much like the white zombie style of zombie minus the Haitian culture. And he says that they could easily overwhelm regular troops. And he calls them robots. And I can't wait to find out when we stop saying robot and start saying robot.

When do we move from, yeah, robot to robot?

I should also note that Armand is being kind of deliberately portrayed in the scene as kind of wishy washy and maybe a little bit passive. And he's going to be that way for a bit in this movie because it sets up his heel turn as the movie. Right.

Now, I found this scene very misleading because it wasted no time jumping into zombie lore and setting you up. And then it wastes 45 minutes getting to it.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Well, and then we quickly moved to sort of... So we're introduced to a, they don't say Buddhist, but a Buddhist priest who has come over, who purportedly holds the secret of creating zombies.

Yeah. They've brought with them, his name is Sion.

Yep.

And they've brought him with them pretty much to demonstrate the power of these zombies, right? Right. And one thing that's kind of comical about this film is, there's a number of scenes in which they will tell you what they're going to do, then the next scene is them doing it, and it's immediately followed by another scene of them sitting around, like recapping and debriefing on the experience.

So, you know, here's a thought I had while watching this. I heard one of those depressing soundbites you hear about people losing their attention spans and stuff. I think it was that the average movie scene now is 15 seconds. And that's like a max that people want to shoot for. And I was thinking, oh, that's horrible. And then I watched this movie and I'm like, okay, maybe we could pick up the pace a little.

Yes, exactly. So kind of a lot of stuff happens here that I want to kind of mostly glide over because the meat of the movie is later. But basically, I don't really understand why Seon has come along with them here. He's in his full priestly garb. I don't know if like the French forcibly brought him over or if he is whatever. But they have him here. And Seon tells them that he will demonstrate the potential power of the zombies on the battlefield. And so we get this really brief scene. It cuts over to a World War I battlefield scene. You know, artillery is going off in the back and you see soldiers in trenches and we see our first zombies. So this is probably... No, White Zombie had zombies on screen early on.

Yes, it did. And I guess it did have a zombie horde technically because he had all those people working for him.

So it shows what I think is supposed to be a German soldier, anyway, a soldier in the trenches.

It is a German soldier. And I want to make one comment about him after you explain it.

Sure. And he is looking up and he is approached by a slow moving, you know, applauding, silent wall of zombie troops basically.

Yeah, Cambodian zombies.

Yes, they are all Cambodians. I think most of them look to be played by Asian actors. So I did wonder if we are moving past the sort of blackface era of a lot of these films.

With the exception of Cian played by William Crowell.

Oh, yes. Oh, man.

There is one bad example of whiteface, which is the Buddhist priest.

Okay.

Well, there are a lot of actual Asian actors in this, which they're not treated well. So I'm hard to say that it's difficult to say that that's progress, but it's some kind of progress.

It is a strange experience because I guess it's nice that they have roles on screen, but it also feels a little gross at the same time. At any rate. So these are our first zombies. They move slowly and inexorably towards their target on the battlefield. We get an interesting, I think this is the first little bit of kind of zombie gore that we've seen because we see that they are being shot and it shows the chest of a zombie and these kind of bloodless bullet holes appearing in it. Yes, but that, of course, does not slow the zombies down.

Yeah, and what happens is they get shot by a German soldier who, for some reason, just has a pistol, which is fine. But he also, as noted in our previous movie, Wanga, he throws bullets, right?

Yes.

He pushes the gun forward and pulls the trigger, and it's like he's throwing the bullets at the zombies. And he empties his clip in one zombie, despite flailing his arm around while shooting, gets them all, like six of them in a center mass of, like, 12 inches apart in the zombie's chest.

I still question the effectiveness of these incredibly slow-moving zombie soldiers. But as the scene ends, as the zombies kind of lurch towards the camera, and I think they're all wielding, like, bayonets, right? So, these are... We might as well talk about what the zombies in this movie are. They are living people who have just been stripped of their independent will. So, they didn't die, they didn't get resurrected. That does make the immune to bullet wounds thing a little weird, but they aren't hungry for the flesh of the living. They just are obeying the orders of their controlling sorcerer, right?

Just like Bellegos' character in White Zombie, he is a mesmerist who has captured all these souls and makes the people do his bidding.

So, then, having seen the zombies demonstrated on the battlefield, we cut back to a post-mission briefing scene with General Deval and a bunch of other people who I think are supposed to be just the allied commanders, right?

Yes, I think so. And this is the first time we get a glimpse of this character, General Mazovia, played by Ror de Arce. And I could not track, he was definitely supposed to be sinister, right? He's wearing a long black robe and has some sort of strange hat on. He has like long beard. I didn't know what to make of him. He sort of unfolded during the movie. But what, help me out here. I thought he was supposed to be Russian at one point, but you're saying no, maybe Ottoman.

Well, so I don't know if he's ever identified. He looks like Bela Lugosi's character from White Zombie. He's got a sinister mustache and goatee. And he looks, I mean, if you were to say, which person in this room is an evil sorcerer, everyone would write to this dude, right?

Right. Even later when he's wearing the same gear as everybody with a pith helmet and shorts, like his pith helmet is black. It's like a sign pointing to him. This is the villain.

Yes. I don't know if he's supposed to be a member representative of the Central Powers or just a sinister presence.

He's a general, so he represents somebody, and the name sounds Russian.

How did this guy rise out of the ranks?

I don't know.

But an ambassador from one of the Central Powers comes into the meeting, and he pleads with the Allies. He says, please stop your experiments with the zombies, because if this gets out of control, it's going to lead to the end of the, quote, white race.

There's our hard racism moment.

This is where I wondered if he was being kind of coded as like a Nazi, or if he was expressing a view that everyone watching this movie would have been like, oh, yes, he makes a good point.

Yeah, and I think just based on the... I just did a little bit of research. I think that fear was real for every non-Asian power. I think that if it wasn't real for them, they certainly stoked it, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think, sadly, it's the latter, but you could be right. He could just be like a Nazi in there just trying to make a point that the Nazis are worse than...

Maybe, but all the allies in the room agree. So I think, you know, and the allies specifically decide that the zombie technology is really too dangerous to let it keep existing in the world. So they are going to imprison Siong, the priest, who claims to, as a descendant of an ancient Cambodian line of priest kings, is one of the last people who knows how the secret of creating zombies. They're going to imprison him for life. I bet he's not very glad that he took this trip to France to show them. And then they decide the reasoning is a little murky, but then they decide that it really would be best to make sure the secret is wiped from the world. They need to mount an expedition to Cambodia, to the city, lost city of Angkor, to find, I guess, they assume the secret of the zombies. That's where it was, the secret lives, and they're going to find it, and they're going to destroy it, right?

Right, and before they leave, General Mazovia murders our Buddhist priest and steals his illustration, his map, that tells him how to conduct the ritual.

Yes, thank you.

So there's this multi-armed, what codes as Hindu statue that the priest is praying before. I don't think it's specifically accurately depicting any Hindu god, it just has multiple arms. It's got like multiple arms, but like Buddha's face, it's a little bit of a mishmash. But what happens is General Mazovia pretends that his arm is one of the shrine's arms, and he stabs the priest from behind the statue, and then he comes out and he's like, it was me.

It's a strange scene, and it's obvious they were trying to do something visually clever, but it just comes across poorly. He starts looming up with the knife, and then like darts back behind the statue, and then he repeats it again. It's too hard.

It's very strange.

It's too hard describing it's not really worth the time invested in it, but I will credit this as them trying to do something interesting with like the lighting and the arms and the shadows in this scene, and it doesn't really... It just don't execute it very well.

Yeah, so I'm sorry to interrupt you, but then we go on the International Expedition for Archaeological Research in Angkor.

Yeah, and the significance, just to recap really quickly, is Mazovia has stolen Seong's parchment that had at least part of the Zombie Recipe River on it, secretly.

Then whoosh, we're in Cambodia.

Yeah, we moved to Cambodia, and our International Expedition is here, although it consists of a lot of the same characters that we've had already in the film.

What is really confusing, and there's no help for it, is these people are supposed to be playing like an international consortium of the great powers, like Italians and Germans and English and French, but they all are American, so I can't really... So there's one guy with a really thick accent, but that's it.

We meet the archaeology team, and there's a bunch of people, but only a couple of them are really important. So we have General Duvall, and we meet his daughter Claire, who is going to be the romantic interest in this film.

Who bears an uncanny resemblance to the heroine in White Zombie.

She does. She has a remarkable hair style, I thought. Just interesting and of the times. Then Armand is there, and so is a new guy we're meeting named Cliff, or Clifford.

Clifford Grayson.

Yeah.

Square-jawed, handsome, confident.

He's like a somewhat more traditional rugged hero type of character, I think, or at least that's how they're trying to present him. The idea here is that they signal already that there's a love triangle here between Claire, Armand and Clifford, right?

Yes.

So Claire and Armand go on this kind of flirty hike into the ruins of Angkor Wat, which is and why don't we talk about it here?

Yeah.

I mean, they're not in Cambodia and they're not in front of actual a set with ruins. No. They're acting in front of like a screen or a painting or something. Is that right, John?

Yeah, a giant painting or a giant photo of Angkor Wat.

I think it's the rear projection.

Okay. All right. That makes sense. So, but it's very obvious they're not there. There's like, conveniently in this movie, it's like a bad third-person shooter where just conveniently for no reason, there's like half height or three-quarter height walls for you to hide behind. But it's there to hide the fact that they're standing in a set in front of a projection. So, yeah.

John, those are the best kind of third-person shooters you just described. I don't know what you're talking about. So, this goes on for a little bit, and we get a little scene between Cliff and Armand who are sharing a tent. They have this conversation that's going to telegraph where this movie is going to go, and where Armand's character arc is going to take him. Armand and Cliff are talking about how amazing Claire is. Cliff gives Armand some advice that unfortunately Armand is going to take a little bit too much to heart.

Armand is basically saying, I think she's great, but I think she's interested in you, but that's okay, like ho-hum, and Grayson is saying to him, Cliff, we'll call him Cliff, is saying, look, you got to have more confidence, you got to, you know, and then he gives him this advice.

What was it you said once about if you want anything, ride roughshod over everything?

Be ruthless, but get all sentiment. Get to your objective, take it and hold it.

I wonder if I could do that.

Perhaps not, but the man that doesn't is a fool.

Yeah, thanks, Cliff. Wow.

Do you have these conversations with your friends, John? I mean, I think.

Don't you remember, Andy, I was telling you, Spineless, just yesterday, and I said, no, I don't have these conversations.

So we then skip, I think we skip, we skip to a dinner scene, which is a little disorienting.

Most of the jumps in this movie so far have been disorienting, and I feel like I've pieced together the plot after the fact.

Well, actually, that is the thing about this movie. We're going to get to one big element of that. The things that happen in this movie are not convincingly portrayed by the movie, so later a character has to explain what happened. It happens on some fairly important plot points, like just sail past you until a character later spells them out for you. But here we are. It is the engagement dinner. I don't know if this is supposed to be like a big flash forward in time or something, but Armand and Claire have gotten engaged to be married. So as you do when you have an engagement party, you have a local dancer doing a long, you know, the scene goes on for quite a while.

I wonder if this is supposed to be very risque.

I think so.

I think it was. I think this kind of dancing, we saw it in Wanga too, is it was like people just dancing and they're like, look at the horrors of the mystic rituals and we're like, what are you talking about? Yeah, this is a very similar kind of thing, but with more sort of traditional guard.

Well, yeah, I think, you know, I mean, what is risque has just, I think, changed over time. So I think what's risque is, you know, like the sensual movements of these dances and in Wanga as well, because she's fully clothed, you know, I mean.

Yeah, she has a giant headdress on, clothed from wrist to shoulder.

Yeah, this goes on for a while, and they all have like a condescending conversation about how hot the dancer is, and it's a little gross. And Cliff is sitting there at the table, you know, feigning happiness for the couple, but he is obviously upset. And so in the biggest possible jerk move you could possibly do, everyone is like, Cliff, come on, tell us what you think about all this. Like you're clearly angry and heartbroken there.

Yeah, why don't we call in the guy who's absolutely miserable and ask him to speak?

So Cliff does give a little speech, and this is how it goes.

I wish you all the happiness that you deserve.

Dang.

Yeah, so short and sweet. So at this point in the movie, I thought that that was that on this. I didn't know where this was going, but it gets weird pretty quick. So yeah, we skip ahead, and they're they're doing some archaeology work, and Claire is suddenly maybe flirting with Cliff, even though she's engaged to Armand. So OK, there's something still going on there.

Like in the next scene.

Yeah, like, yeah, yes. But we do get a plot. Significant thing happens here. They're all sitting around doing archaeology work. I've been on archaeology digs, and it doesn't look like this.

So just, you know, you don't get to sit on benches on little pulleys and dust things and well, paper rubbing granted.

There were no pulleys at my archaeology digs. So I don't know how this works. But in an exciting action sequence, something there is a terrible accident. And one of the ropes, some people are sitting up on like the suspended a rope that is holding some people up like a bench. Yeah, it frays, spilling them down onto the ground about like six whole feet, yeah, about six feet at first. One of the guys that lands, I mean, he acts like he's been killed by this. Yes, my old. But but so I didn't understand what this scene was doing. This is one of those things that was later explained what this meant. So at the time, I was like, is Cliff doing something here to try to win clear back or something like that? But what I'm just going to spoil it. And so I'm sorry, you know, if you are really trying to avoid spoilers, be sure to watch the rest of this movie now.

A, you're in the wrong place, but B.

So the skip ahead. So what is happening is General Mazovia is starting to sabotage things around the dig. And the end effect that's going to have is to basically all the local workers are going to quit. And that will be the end that will force the group to leave Angkor. But right now, all we know is that there's this accident going on.

And then Claire leaps into Cliff's arms.

Yes, and then we just, it's just the most bizarre thing. The very next scene.

Then we transition again. Yeah. Yeah.

The very next scene is Claire breaking off her engagement with Armand. It turns out she was scheming, she was just using Armand to make Cliff jealous and want her.

Yes.

And they have, although this would be the most emotionally intense conversation of your entire life. I mean, like maybe you'll have two conversations in your life of this intensity, right? But everyone is both Claire and Armand are very calm.

It's just like, they're like, I respect you for being so honest. You know, like, what are you talking about?

He keeps complimenting on her on her honesty. He's like, well, isn't her dishonesty what got us here? But John, in our last episode, you mentioned that Freddie Washington and Wonga seemed like she was acting in a modern movie and everyone else was acting in an old movie or a stage play. And this is one of a couple of like scenes that in real life, this would be a very emotional, very intense scene. People would be crying. People would be emoting like crazy. But here they're just passionlessly delivering their lines to each other, right?

Yeah, the most sort of emotional thing is it sort of certifies Armand is sort of a sad sack with no guts, right? Like he's like, well, I guess I lost. Oh, well.

Yeah, exactly. Like not even this can really make him have a stereotypically emotional reaction.

Right, right.

So Claire is now with Cliff and we see some scenes of Claire and Cliff, you know, dancing and kissing and Armand is brooding. And so, hey, John, why don't you tell us what does Armand stumble across that changes the course of his life?

So a couple of things happen. First of all, he's just examining photos from the ruins. And then he realizes that the photos show like a mosaic or a mural. It's a carving, it's a relief carving on the walls. And it's like, oh, this is how it works. And it depicts some people dancing, like the dancer who are dressed like the dancer we've seen. And above them is like this wind, this like mystic powder blowing. And then he realizes this is it. And here's what he discovers.

I change zoo. Ambassador to the Khmer Kingdom of Angkor witnessed a strange ceremony, which...

So, Armand, brooding up in the upstairs, while everyone else is at this kind of a garden party downstairs, has figured out what they've been missing this whole time. And he immediately decides that he needs to head back to the ruins, because what isn't, I think, entirely clear is that by this point, I think the expedition has had to leave due to this string of accidents.

Right, of which we've seen one.

We've seen one, and we'll just be told later that that's what happened. So they are back, I think, in the capital of Cambodia, far away from the archaeology site now. But Armand realizes they missed the obvious thing, and he's going to go back to Angkor to find the secret of the Zombies. And this is where we get a new character, one beloved by Brad, arrives. And this is a Cambodian local named Buna, who is a friend or maybe a servant, or it's a little unclear what his relationship is here.

I think he's his valet or his manservant. He just seems to be sitting there, and then when Armand needs something, he hops up and does it.

When Buna hears that Armand is going to head back, Buna tries to warn him off because he says, since you guys left, the priests have started doing ceremonies in Angkor, and you really don't want to be there when that happens. But Armand ignores the advice and goes off by himself, although we do learn that General Mazovia is secretly following him.

Right, so he puts on his pith helmet and a blazer.

His pants are belted at his upper torso. It's like the least menacing outfit for a sorcerer.

Right.

So this next sequence, I think maybe saying I enjoyed it, it would be a little strong, but it is a very proto Indiana Jones.

Sorry, I stalled you.

No, it sounds like we thought the same thing. Tell us what happens next and why White injects a tiny bit of interest into what so far has been just like a plotting storyline.

A plotting. Yeah. He can only get into the first antechamber, but in there is a statue similar to the one that, who are identical to the one that Siang was praying to when he was in prison. In front of it is a stone tablet depicting the ceremony and what he needs to do. But he can't figure out how to penetrate further into the temple, and so he starts playing around with the different gongs and bells on the statue, and he eventually uses two of the things on the statue to produce a ringing sound that causes a false wall to turn around and reveal to him the details of how the ceremony works. He takes out his sketchbook and starts sketching it all.

Yeah. I like this set. There's some footage of him sneaking through this Cambodian temple, and then this chamber he finds the statue is down in this, I think it's supposed to be like an underground grotto. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I had those reversed. What he does first is he's sneaking through the temple, then he falls through a false floor. But he gets attacked by somebody first, and I don't know who that is.

It's confusing. It's like...

I thought it was Mesovia, but after the attack, Mesovia's, then he shows up.

I think it was just a local guard of the temple or something like that.

All right.

It's not exciting in the way that Indiana Jones doing this would be exciting, but the visual aesthetic of the... It's that visual aesthetic of like the Tomb Raider...

The Tomb Raider, the huge stone blocks and the falling through the secret passage and having to figure out the puzzle to get the wall to move.

Exactly. Yeah. I kind of liked it.

So in a desert, even the worst water tastes great. I forget the expression, but yes.

Well, I'd be curious if the writing on these secret instructions actually is a real language or if they...

Yeah, it would be too.

I mean, I'm not curious enough to try and find out, but yeah.

The production did hire an archaeologist and a historian from, I think it said the Art Institute of Chicago, who were both well known for their research on Angkor.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Well, maybe we've been mocking what is an incredibly realistic depiction of...

Yeah, they do have a couple of realistic things. When they go back to headquarters, they say, we go to Phnom Penh, which is what it was actually... That was the major city in Cambodia at the time. It's not like they're making stuff up. It's just they don't seem to care all that much. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's that level of care that really comes across.

I forgot the best part was where he's frightened by a bat, and that's what makes him fall through the floor.

Is that what happened?

Yes. There's a bat crawling on the ceiling. He turns around and then he's, whoa, and he falls in the hole.

Yeah. For all I just praised that scene, it also is boring and incomprehensible. But Armand returns with the Secret of the Zombies to the base camp. But when he gets back, he is not greeted with praise or excitement. He is instead fired on the spot because his one-man expedition to Angkor was unauthorized and he left a lot of important work undone while he did it. So he is just fired on the spot. And I think this is the narrative moment in kind of the protagonist's life. This is like the nadir. His fiance broke up with him. He has lost his job. He is going to have to leave and go back home. This is the low point. And I think it does set up the decision that he makes. Yeah. And John, what decision does he make?

Well, what he does is he goes to his lab to start working, because he's still trying to figure out. And I think this part has a mad scientist vibe.

It does, yes.

Yeah. And so he's trying to basically, he sees in this carving that there's some white, smoky substance that seems to be part of the mesmerization. And he is building. He's got like a mortar and pestle.

Yeah. It looks like he has a drug lab, you know, honestly.

Yeah. No, like his lab consists of one desk with a bunch of test tubes and beakers on it. But he makes this powder and he thinks he's figured something out, so he tells Boona to come over. And he heats the substance up, it produces a smoke, which he avoids, but he blows in Boona's face. Of course, without telling Boona ahead of time. Hey Boona, I'm going to test this stuff to see if it turns you into a zombie. They don't have that conversation.

Yeah, the movie just treats this completely cavalierly.

Yeah, right? Like, oh, he's my servant. I can try to turn him into a zombie if I want to. But it works. At first he thinks it doesn't work, but then it does work. So again, Boona is alive, and he is having his will stolen by this ritual. So again, we're not into undead zombies yet, but we are into mindless zombies at this point, under control of their master.

And we do have a little audio clip. Let's hear Armand talking about what he has just accomplished.

Can you move hand or foot, except as I will it?

No, master.

Can you think or speak, except as I command?

No, master. Boona!

We're learning to be ruthless.

Man, all that well-intentioned advice, and look where it's led.

Look where it's led him. And then we do another jarring cut.

Yes.

It's a new character who's apparently Armand's best friend. What's happening here?

So yeah, he's talking with this new friend who has just entered the film, I think, and is gonna be kind of Mr. Exposition. He's older? Yeah.

Yeah, he's in a wheelchair. Seems like an old wise uncle or something.

What I'm learning from these films, John, is everyone in the 30s had just hanging around with them, like a guy who is 30 years older who could occasionally dispense advice.

And wasn't he at the archaeological site and fell?

Was he the one that fell?

Oh, that's it.

He's the one who fell and looked dead, but then he woke up and said, I feel numb, and now he's in a wheelchair.

I feel so bad right now for teasing him for making a big deal out of this short fall because that's him in the wheelchair.

John, I can't believe that.

I'm horrible. I'm so bad, I could direct a movie in the 1930s.

The movie is hard to follow.

Yes, it is. But you're right. I think that's it. But he wasn't named until now. He's now McDonald's.

So they're talking about the fact that Claire's wedding is now just two weeks away and this startles Armand, and there is an alternate timeline in which the next couple scenes are kind of clever and well-done, but we don't quite live in that timeline.

But we don't know.

But we then kind of strangely cut from that conversation, and it looks like Armand is thinking or up to something. We cut to a scene where General Duvall has called Cliff in, and General Duvall is speaking all of a sudden in very stilted, monotone language.

Did we get the Bella Lugosi eyes? Yes. Like, yes. So in the McDonald scene, he is distance mesmerizing. He's like projecting mesmerization into another building where General Duvall is, and we see the Bella Lugosi eyes hypnotizing General Duvall. This is a recurring effect now.

So here is what I thought had happened. I thought that he had some time, that he had zombified General Duvall.

No, I think what it's telling is, I don't know what the deal with that white powder was, because it never comes up again, and he multiple times mesmerizes people from a distance. I think that's what, and this is the first time we see him do it.

It reverts to White Zombie, where you can just use the power of your eyes without seeing someone and control them.

It does point to the continual overlap between what we in modern movies would call occult horror and mad scientist horror. Because this zombie formula is a scientific, you can have a recipe for it and make it in a lab, but it's combined also with this more overtly occult mesmerism type of stuff. I think movies are going to start splitting, I think those are going to split away from each other as time goes on, but I guess we'll find out, right?

Yeah, I'm curious because I'm just thinking forward a little bit, right? If I think about Night of the Living Dead, I think that's solidly a mystical zombie movie, like I don't remember a bunch of science in that movie, but when you go to Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, we've got viruses and stuff.

Night of the Living Dead is a comet, right? Or a meteor.

Yes, so maybe it is pseudoscientist. Yeah. All right, well, I'm thinking too far ahead then.

No, it's fine. We still have, like in our past movies, we still have one foot in the Frankenstein mad scientist realm here with all of this stuff. But anyway, what Armand has done is he started this plan to get Claire back, so he mesmerizes General Duval, who orders Cliff, so even though Cliff's wedding is just a couple weeks away, Duval sends him off on this really long mission with no advance warning. This is going to cause him to miss his wedding, right? Right. Cliff is annoyed but accepts this, I guess. While this is happening, Mazovia eventually confronts Armand because this is General Mazovia, the guy who's been following him around, clearly trying to get the secret of the zombies for himself. He confronts Armand up in his lab once he realizes what Armand is doing.

I actually love this bit. He is there and he's hidden in his lab, and then he reveals himself and does a quote from Dr. Faustus about Satan and the deal that Armand has made. He's comparing him to Dr. Faustus, the deal with the devil to get this zombie power. Then he says.

As a reminder, he calls Armand Luke, the last name.

Thank you.

You have need of me, my dear Luke. You are a Claude. I a man of imagination. You have stumbled upon this lost knowledge of the centuries. I have hesitated at nothing to gain it. Let me share your secret with you, and the world lies at our feet.

Yeah, this is weird to me.

What struck me about this is it felt like those two types of horror talking to each other.

Yeah.

Armand, despite the mesmerism thing, Armand has mostly been going about this kind of scientifically. Yes. Mazovia is this old school, he looks like Satan, old school like Faustian necromancer type, who's talking about deals with the devil. It felt like those two genres of horror were in direct conversation with each other here. What did you think about it?

Yeah, I agree. I guess my one criticism here is, I kind of don't know why Mazovia was in the movie. Because the next thing that happens is he attacks Armand, and Armand uses, he doesn't attack him, he threatens him. Armand fakes that he's showing him the technique, but what he's really doing is summoning Buna to come kill Mazovia, which happens. But after that happened, I thought, well, so why is Mazovia here at all?

Yeah, the movie's plot would not really change. Mazovia claims in this conversation that he has been pulling the strings behind the scene all through the movie so far to get Armand to make his discovery. But I don't, but if you think about what has happened, that's not really what has been portrayed in the movie. And if you didn't have Mazovia in this movie, the plot would not change in any way, shape, or form.

So Mazovia dies.

I did like how he killed Mazovia, though, like you said, pretending to show him the ritual, but he's actually summoning a zombie to like execute Mazovia. It's kind of neat.

Yes, it's cool. And then in true zombie mad scientist movie form, he just leaves Mazovia's body in the movie.

Yes, that's another thing we're learning about these films.

Yes. And so then he goes off and he hypnotizes everybody. What is this?

So I thought he was turning everyone into zombies.

I think he is. When I say hypnotize, I mean, he's using his power to make them zombies.

So the movie is unclear, but it cuts to this point where I think we are led to believe that Armand has zombified an entire regiment of Cambodian soldiers, as well as most of the staff of the archeology team. Basically, everybody except Cliff and Claire.

Correct.

Is that your understanding?

That's my understanding. He hasn't turned Cliff into a zombie because Cliff is too far away.

Yes.

And he hasn't turned Claire into a zombie because he wants Claire to fall in love with him.

We talked earlier that this is a movie that seems to be introducing the idea of this zombie horde, and although it's not real clear in this movie, but in theory, Armand has an army of zombies at his beck and call now, which I think partly it is tapping into that, quote, yellow peril fear. So, it's not an unabashedly good trope, but I do think that we are seeing the birth of the zombie hordes will overrun you trope that's going to be everywhere.

Absolutely. There's also in this scene is the line that is lifted directly from White Zombie. In White Zombie, when Bela Lugosa is bragging about all the people he's taken over or put under his control, the protagonist asks him, well, what happens if you lose control? And he says, they would tear me to pieces, which is exactly what Bela Lugosa says in White Zombie.

And it's also inaccurate, as we're going to learn, but we'll get to that in just a minute. Because believe it or not, dear listeners, we are near the end of this movie. So there's only one thing left to do. Armando zombified everyone except Claire and Cliff, and he needs to go get married to Claire.

He has not zombified McDonald.

No, he has not. Because he respects him.

The guy that John was mocking for his injury.

Yes, that one, Andy.

So Cliff and Armando confront each other. Armando is leading this troop of zombies, and Cliff basically tells Armando, he cuts a deal with Armando.

Just before this, we have a scene where Cliff wakes up in his tent and he's heard a mental summons from Claire, and he hurries back to headquarters, and then they confront him.

Okay, I missed, I somehow missed that. I swear, I watched this movie.

Yeah, he was just sleeping in a hut with a servant, and then he wakes up and says that, and then he's back.

Okay, well, the long and the short of it is, the three of them reach this arrangement, basically. Claire promises to marry Armando if he spares Cliff from being zombified, right? Right. And in this conversation, you know, Armando does the whole, I learned it from you routine.

Although the one sort of theme of this movie about ruthlessness comes home to Ruzd here.

Yeah. So he's all, you know, you're the one that told me to be ruthless. Well, now I'm being ruthless. So Cliff and Claire are allowed to say goodbye. And this is another scene. I mean, this would be the most important conversation of your life. And they deliver it without an ounce of passion or emotion.

I'll always love you. Goodbye.

Yeah, that sort of thing. So Armand then marries Claire or is about to marry Claire. But our friend McDonald in the wheelchair gives a kind of final warning to Armand. And here's what he says.

You've done a terrible thing to her.

Is it so terrible to fight for and to get the one thing in this world you want?

Not if you played a gentleman's game.

I don't like sermons.

Nor perhaps the truth?

Perhaps not.

I do. This power which you have, this obsession which drives you on, will defeat you in the end. And it should. You fool yourself with the delusion that you can make this woman love you. You can't do it. No man should do what his sense of right tells him not to do, nor desire that which it forbids him to desire.

So, he says that Armand's plan is going to bring him to a bad end in the end. But that end is like 60 seconds away. So this is a very quickly.

But Armand is not convinced yet. It takes, he doesn't, he sort of has a revelation.

Yes. Well, like the main guy in White Zombie, he realizes that he's never going to have Claire's love because he forced this situation and she's not acting out of free will. So he tells her that he will free everybody from their zombie state in exchange for her loving him basically. And she agrees. And so we get a little montage of everybody snapping out of their zombie state, right? So all the people from the archaeology team and the soldiers break out of their zombie state.

And Boona.

And Boona, Boona shout kind of rallies these Cambodian former zombies and says, we have to go kill this guy. And so you get the most horde like scenes at this point in the movie, although they're no longer zombies, all these Cambodian troops are basically charging and swarming and trying to break into the building where Armand is. And they bust down the door and they don't tear him to pieces, but they do shoot him to death with rifles.

Yes, they again throw bullets with their rifles, which have bayonets attached, which John is not a handgun or a weapons expert, but you don't fire a rifle when the bayonets on it. You fire it and then you put the bayonet on it. Anyway, yes. And he died.

An important note, yes. And this is basically, like all these movies, they just, they cut to credits almost instantly the second, like the plot is resolved. But we do get a really brief scene of people kind of musing on the lesson we've all learned from this experience.

Yeah. Just one thing, can I jump back? There's one actually sort of good speech that Armand gives just before this. He's given up control and he hears the zombies coming, and he gives Claire this speech realizing, you know, you once asked me to tell you the story about these ruins and this emperor who gave all his power up. Well, this is the story. He did it for the woman he loved. And that's right before the zombies bust in and try to shoot him.

You wondered once how the great Priest King Yakov Armand lost his power, releasing his subjects. He was enamored of the fair Ender. He did try by sundry means to win her love. But she, as women will, could not care for him. So he willingly gave up his power for this woman he loved.

It is so funny trying to remember that this is supposed to be a French speaker. I mean, that's like, but yeah. And so then the credits roll, and that's a wrap on Revolt of the Zombies, so.

Yes, you're missing McDonald's famous last line.

Oh, am I?

Yeah, when the gods destroy first, they make mad.

Oh, right. It's better than.

That's definitely mad science.

It's better than the what was the white zombie last line?

That got a match. Got a match?

So then OK, so then Credit Troll after that, you know, sobering final line, for sure. So, yes, John, sure. Let's talk about the zombies in this movie and how we think this does or does not fit into our our Zombie Strains kind of timeline.

So the first zombies we see as this sort of wall of of Cambodian zombies bearing down on this German trench and it feels like nothing can stop them. The scene does not play as scary here, but I feel like like this is an important moment in zombie history because we have a horde. You can shoot the horde and they just keep coming. I feel like that's a thing that we haven't seen before.

Yeah, and an awful lot of movies are going to show gunshots landing, but doing nothing, you know, and so as silly as that quick little bloodless clip was, I thought it was kind of an interesting thing. And we already talked that zombies here are closer to kind of a global existential threat, but although this idea was present in some of the other movies we watched, this movie felt like the first one where you should be afraid that you might be turned into a zombie. Do you agree with that?

Yes. I agree with that. There's two things I think that are important. That's certainly one, that you could be turned into a zombie, even though it's not through a bite or through a virus. It's just from somebody using this power to take control of you. But also, that zombies are kind of scary here, right? Like I didn't find any of the previous zombies particularly scary. But these, I feel like we've been asking the question, could you win these zombies? And we jokingly say yes every time. But I feel like if Armand had control of that arm and he sent them after me, I would actually be in serious trouble.

I think you would too, John. No offense.

Yeah.

So, John, what type of zombie movie, what strain do you think this one fits into?

I still think it's a mad scientist. The scientist who flies too close to the sun, he gets his power and it ultimately destroys him, right?

Yeah.

It's definitely the mad scientist version and it's still the mesmerism, not living dead. So the only living dead we've had, well, no, we had some in White Zombie but none of these people are dead. So it's a mad scientist exerting control to remove people's souls and minds and do what he wants them to do.

Yeah. The zombies are a weapon wielded by the villain, like they have been in most of the other zombie movies we watched, which is, I can't think of too many recent big zombie movies that had a trope like this really.

No, but it's definitely strong in these early movies. The other thing is that you can recover.

Yes.

Like in a current zombie movie, in Dawn of the Dead or Girl with All the Gifts, the second year bit, everybody knows that's it. We've talked about in those movies about that important scene where two people in love realize one of them has been bit, and they've got to make a hard moral choice. That's one of our criteria. But here, it still feels like, well, our hero can still save them, which is not the case in later zombie movies.

Do we want to quickly recap your pillars of the zombie movie? I know we've touched on a lot of them, but let's just formally go through your list.

Yeah, just real quick. First thing is societal collapse. Now, society does not collapse, but it suggested it could if the zombie menace were unleashed.

I'm going to give this one half a credit towards fulfilling this pillar of the zombie.

I agree. The zombies are depicted as an existential threat. Now, in this case, it's just to the Western world. But yeah, next we have contagion, which is not really here. We still have a mad scientist or a mesmerist who can turn you into a zombie, but another zombie can't turn you into a zombie.

It requires an act of will on somebody's part to make you well.

Right. Yeah. Then the people you love turning against you. I actually think that is here. At one point, Armand says to Claire, I'm going to let Cliff go free, but as soon as Cliff is out of sight, he does use his power to zombify him. So there is a little taste of, yes, we can turn your beloveds against you kind of thing. So I think not super strong, but I think that is here.

Yeah. And I don't think anyone, even his own children, love General Devault, but he does turn against his peers when he is zombified and orders Cliff to go on that long mission. And then what's the fourth one?

The fourth one is Tough Moral Choices. I think there is a moral lesson to this movie about the abuse of power, but that feels like a moral lesson for a mad scientist movie, and not the walking dead, dawn of the dead, tough moral calculus, where it's more like, if I don't kill this person, I'm going to die. This is more like you're behaving morally and correctly because you're abusing your power as a mad scientist, and that doesn't feel like a tough moral choice.

I think there's a difference between the question, how much of my humanity will I jettison to survive, versus how much of my humanity will I jettison to get what I want.

Yeah, I think that's different.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, there's not-

That's a great way to frame it though.

Yeah, there's not that kind of desperate basic human instinct stakes attached to it.

So I feel like we started to brush a couple of them, right? Certainly the existential threat and certainly the people you know turning against you.

So we have a couple of things to check off here. We aren't really in movies where there is like a band of survivors whose numbers dwindle.

Correct.

But what is our death count here? Who survives and who doesn't? Let's see.

Well, McDonald. As I mentioned many times, McDonald was horribly crippled in this movie. The only one who dies is the competing villain.

Siong is murdered, but he's maybe not really part of the group.

He's not killed by a zombie, though. He's murdered by Mazovia. Mazovia is murdered by a zombie.

Mazovia, that's a good zombie death. I give them credit for that one. That was a good one, so.

Yeah, I think so. But everybody else survives.

Yes.

Except for Armand.

Yeah, but it's not zombies that get him. So, I don't know, misleading titles, the Revolt of the Former Zombies, not Revolt of the, but I guess it's a little too late for that. So John, do we recommend this film to zombie fans?

I feel like every film we've watched so far, of the 30s films for sure, have had something to recommend them, like Wanga was about some interesting cultural dynamics and Maniac was just a gonzo transgressive film. This one just sort of felt like a dud. When I was worried about watching films in the 30s, I was worried that they'd all be like this. And so far they haven't been, but this is like the first one where I'm like, oh, state acting and no real stakes and it's not really scary. So, I mean, it's not bad. If you're a true enthusiast, you should watch it because I think there's important zombie moments in here, but I think it's a little flat.

I wholeheartedly agree. If what you want art to see, I liked the way you phrased it, that it brushes up against some of those modern zombie tropes. If you do want to see those little connecting filaments to the modern zombie genre, I guess watch it. I will say, as purely as a cinematic experience, it's boring, not scary, and not suspenseful.

Correct.

I don't regret watching it, but watch it for the right reasons, I guess.

The only other thing I can say to recommend is, like all the other 1930s movies, it is just about an hour long.

Yeah. Yes. That is the saving grace of a lot of these, honestly. Can you imagine if this had been, even the ones we really liked, can you imagine if they had been twice as long?

This was like the Michael Bay of 1936, and it was three hours long, filled with self-indulgent effect shots.

And then they had the color version instead of the black location.

Yeah.

All right. So, Brad, I am scared.

I have one question for you two before we move on.

Yeah.

So, this obviously is a low-budget film.

Right.

The quality was low, the sets were low. What did you think of the final battle at that big temple, that location?

I'm curious how they did that. That's a lot of extras.

I was actually asking about the set.

Were they breaking the door?

It's at this big temple?

Yeah, yeah.

I'll cut to the chase. It's a place that still exists in Hollywood. It's called Yamashiro's. It's a restaurant that overlooks Hollywood. It was built in 1911. It's a replica of a palace in Kyoto. So you can come to LA and still see it.

Now I want to.

That is somehow just perfect.

If I come to LA next year, Brad, you're taking me to dinner there.

Brad.

I've never been there, but I've seen it. It's a very touristy place.

I did worry when you said, that is a real, then my mind filled in, uh-oh, they went to a real Cambodian temple and wrecked it, didn't they? Equally plausible, but yes. So, Brad, I'm almost, I'm nervous to ask, but what is next on the roster?

Yeah.

Well, I have some good news. We're going to leave the 30s and go to the 40s. Our next film is The Ghost Breakers from 1940, and if you check the chat, you will see the poster.

All right, let me see.

Ooh.

Whoa.

What do you see, guys?

Okay, so.

Sorry.

I can't tell if the poster is funny, if it's just relief that we finished this movie.

No, it's not. So, first of all, the movie doesn't have anything about zombies in the title. We are going to watch Ghost Breakers, or excuse me, The Ghost Breakers, and it stars Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. But the creature is like this pink, Casper-looking thing, maybe kind of like a Kilroy Was Here kind of thing with the nose. It's bizarre.

Have you ever seen, you know, when people will sometimes put googly eyes on a painting to make it funny? That's what this ghost creature looks like.

Yeah, it's like a horrifying ghost, but to suck all the tension out of the room. So he put googly eyes on it.

That's perfect. Bob Hope. Okay, this is going to be interesting, though.

Yeah. Can I say something? Like, I know who Bob Hope is. I've seen him do stand up, like, on The Tonight Show or whatever, like in old clips and stuff. But I can't say for sure I've ever watched a movie starring Bob Hope the actor.

Yep, same here. Yep.

No, I'm curious.

Okay.

There's no exclamation text. There's no text here to make any proclamations. It's just a list of the stars and a pink ghost with googly eyes.

Paulette Goddard was in many Charlie Chaplin films, Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

She's shown here sort of glancing over her shoulder in fear and clutching her shoulder.

I will say this is probably the best setting aside the pink ghost zombie with googly eyes. The actually illustrations of Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard are not bad. Like we've been dealing with some crud posters here. So this is like a step forward.

Well, the bar is set very low. This poster unlike many previous ones does not brag about how risque the film will be. So I take that as a positive move.

All right, 1940, the Ghost Breakers. We're on it. See you next episode. You have been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back in two weeks to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend. Post on your socials. This will help like minded people find our show. See you next time.