King of the Zombies [PG]

When a government plane on a secret mission gets caught in a storm, the pilot and two passengers latch onto a radio broadcast coming from a remote island. They make an emergency crash landing right in the middle of a private graveyard where a creepy mansion sits in the middle. Living in the mansion is a reclusive European doctor and the crash-landed trio soon discover that there’s more strangeness on the island than just the doctor’s behaviour. There are zombies! 

Within the traditional vein of zombie movies, before the subgenre went all viral and Romero-esque, King of the Zombies is actually quite a fine little movie, although it has to be said that the ending is pretty damned anti-climactic. But for the most part, the performances are solid, the characters are likable, and there’s a nice undercurrent story running parallel to the zombie one, which brings a good level of complexity to the movie making it a solid little B-grade cult horror. 

As I mentioned, the story of this film is good because there are two central plots running on top of one another that brings this nice level of complexity to the flick. On the surface it’s a fun zombie movie with the simple and recognisable, but enjoyable plot of the central trio crash landing on a strange island filled with zombies. Then underneath that we have this story of political intrigue, which makes this movie a bit of a fusion between supernatural horror and political thriller, though admittedly the political story is not as strong as the dominating zombie plot. With the two plots intertwining, a certain amount of reality is brought to an otherwise fun and unbelievable flick and the simplicity of it just works to create a nice fusion film. 

We’ve also go this fun group of characters, which ultimately do adhere to horror movie tropes that have become clichés, but still makes for an enjoyable experience. We’ve got the strapping American leader and hero, the only one to not at some point become captive of the other side. Then we have the, supposedly, Irish pilot and wingman who’s hot-headed and ready to spring into action. Finally, we have the black servant who provides the movie with all the comic relief and is admittedly the best thing about the film. The black supporting characters also too, are the key providers of information dumps and conveying plot developments to the audience so they prove to be significant characters. 

Everyone gave good, invested performances, but the standout is Mantan Moreland who plays Jeff the trio’s leader’s servant. Bringing a humour and lightness to the movie with his jazzy dialogue, Mantan delivers a performance that is both funny and quite admirable in its relentless investment in the comic relief stereotype because ultimately he is the victim of much racial attack here in terms of class and ethnicity. Being automatically the underdog, of course everyone in the audience falls in love with him, he’s the character to root for. 

Starring Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, Henry Victor, John Archer, Patricia Stacey, Guy Usher, Marguerite Whitten, Leigh Whipper, Madam Sul-Te-Wan, James Davis, and Laurence Criner, King of the Zombies, whilst having a rather weak title, is a film that stands as a solid little cult horror and a good fusion flick. Filled with action, horror, suspense, drama, and political thrills, I quite enjoyed it.