The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

Before Romero came along and changed things forever, zombies were rarely very interesting on screen. As evidence, I present Exhibit A: Blood of the Zombie. It’s also known as The Dead One and that’s a pretty apt title — thee ain’t much life here. It’s a typical early-’60s bit of plodding, matinee-monster crap. A man inherits a plantation, upon condition of  getting married, so he takes his blushing bride down to check things out and take possession of the property. But his voodoo-practicing cousin has other ideas, and plans to murder the wife — via zombie — before the will can be executed. With one scenery chewing exception (the voodoo priestess cousin) the acting is totally wooden. The writing and direction are both awful. The zombie is as slow, unthreatening and uninteresting as the movie itself. The best feature of this movie was its runtime: 68 minutes — and that’s with some early padding scenes of belly dancers and jazz bands.