King of the Zombies

Horror comedy from Monogram starring Mantan Moreland and a couple of forgettable bores. I'm not a big fan of Moreland but I'll admit he outshines these two guys by a country mile. It's basically an old dark house film with the three men stranded in said house on an island with a mad scientist (Henry Victor in a role originally meant for Bela Lugosi).

There's a lot of stuff about voodoo and zombies, which is just an excuse to let Moreland do his bug-eyed double-takes and "afraid of spooks" routine. This is the part of Moreland's comedy shtick that I have never enjoyed. And it's not because of the offensive racial element of it, but rather because I'm not enamored with comedians who rely heavily on goofy facial expressions for laughs. I've voiced the same complaints about the likes of Red Skelton and Huntz Hall. But there is a part of Moreland's act I do like and that's when he falls back into his vaudeville routine of having a snappy back and forth with another actor. We see a bit of that here when he shares scenes with the maid (played by Marguerite Whitten). Those scenes were my favorite parts of the movie.

Anyway, the horror isn't all it's teased to be as there's an espionage plot that's a lot less interesting. It was 1941, after all. It's not a great movie but it's not terrible by Poverty Row standards. It moves along quickly enough, which helps. But the entire film rests on Moreland's shoulders. If you love him, you'll probably laugh your tail off watching this. If you don't, this will go over like a lead balloon.