Valley of the Zombies (1946)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

the audience applauded

People are voting emotionally.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is not your traditional zombie film - they do not mean "zombie" in the way we think film them in films. I won't tell for it would ruin the film. With this film think Jack the Ripper is a Vampire in a way... this one is really hard to describe, you would just have to see it for yourself.Ian Keith as Ormand Murks is super! He reminds me a lot of Boris Karloff as Cabman John Gray in "The Body Snatcher (1945)" and, as I said, Jack the Ripper. Ormand Murks is right up there with them - he is a madman.This is a really good late at night film - great atmosphere: graveyard, a madman on the loose, talk of an asylum, embalming... if you like the classic films with these things then you should enjoy this "Valley of the Zombies".8/10

***SPOILERS*** One of the last of the Zombie crazed 1940's Zombie movies has former undertaker and later insane lunatic Ormand Murks,Ian Keith, come back from the dead as a combination Zombie/Vampire who craves blood, his blood type and no one else's,to stay alive. This has Murks raid hospital blood banks and with the help of his almost Zombie like brother Fred, Earle Hodgins, get him the blood that he so desperately needs. It's when Murks turns to murder in murdering the man in charge of the hospital blood bank Dr. Rufus Maynard, Charles Trowbridge, who was about to report him to the police that Fred in not wanting to be implicated in Dr. Maynard's murder called it quits only to end up being murdered, and sucked dry of his blood, by an outraged and deranged Murks.To keep the story going and prevent the audience from falling asleep we have some comedy relief in the persons of Dr. Terry Evens, Robert Livingston, and his afraid of her own shadow nurse Susan Drake, Lorna Gray, who turn detectives in solving the string of murders blood draining and embalming victims that the crazed Ormand Murks is responsible for. There's also for good measures the Keystone Kop like police lead by the clueless Chief Inspector Rayan, Charles Cane, and his two bumbling assistants detectives Blake & Hendricks, Thomas E. Jackson & Leroy Mason, who make both Terry & Susan's job of tracking down and finding Murks that much more difficult.***SPOILERS*** Despite what seemed like him having supernatural powers Murks wasn't bullet proof which proved to be his Achilles Heel that in the end did the crazy guy in. That's after he captured and hypnotized Susan and forced her to kill Terry who was on his way, together with the police, to capturing and bringing him in. Being as mindless as he was crazy Murks, who was armed with a handgun, ordered Susan to shoot Terry who by hesitating for just a moment gave to police all the time that they needed to plug him themselves.

Ormond Murks (Ian Keith) is an ex-mental patient and mortician thought to be dead. However, he actually pretended to be dead and used some sort of voodoo mumbo-jumbo to keep himself alive forever. The only problem is, to stay alive, he needs blood....lots and lots of blood. And, he's not at all afraid to take it--draining his victims and then embalming them.A doctor (cowboy star Robert Livingston) and his annoying nurse (Lorna Gray) are implicated in the crime--mostly because the cops are the stereotypically stupid variety. When they discover a clue, they do what anyone would do--they keep it to themselves and investigate the crime on their own!! All in all, not a great B-movie but also not bad either (aside from Gray's VERY annoying character). Kind of fun, though there really aren't any zombies in the film despite the title. Also, while the madman is able to use hypnotism to control his folks and make them do his evil bidding, this is not possible. I have training in hypnosis and would certainly use it for evil if it was possible!

Dr. Maynard (Charles Trowbridge) tells Dr. Terry Evans (Robert Livingston) and his nurse, Susan Drake (Lorna Gray), about the theft of ten pints of blood from his lab. Later, he is visited by Ormand Murks (Ian Keith), a man Maynard had once had committed to an insane asylum.What attracted me to this film is quite simple: it is old and it is short. I am all about short films to watch while eating breakfast, and I am all about watching older movies (as a reviewer, my job simply cannot be done properly without knowing the history of film, particularly horror).Ian Keith plays a very cool, creepy man, wrongly judged insane, who wears a grave robber outfit. He is the highlight of the film, and what makes this one more horror fans should see. There is also a fun homicide detective scene where they question Lorna Gray and try to get her to falsely confess to murder. The back and forth is pretty fun, and it makes me wish that Gray was in more films like this (or like her Three Stooges work).