Zombies were hot in the early 1940s. The Halperin Brothers' White Zombie (1932) with Bela Lugosi in perhaps his most eccentric and memorable performance, broke new horror ground at the dawn of the talkies. But the zombie phenomena lay dormant for a decade afterward with the sole exception of the Halperin's own Revolt of the Zombies (1936), a stagnant film that is rarely revived for good reason. Director Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie (1943), a poetic and very spooky voodoo story produced by Val Lewton, revived this sub-genre. No filmmaker since has managed to sound the same note of subtle mysterioso achieved by Tourneur. Producer Sam Katzman, who went to absolutely no expense if he could help it, weighed in with Voodoo Man, just as the abbreviated zombie cycle began to wane. One of the most memorable Poverty Row thrillers, this threadbare shocker was helmed by the much-maligned William Beaudine, sometimes referred to as "One-shot" owing to his penchant for money-saving single takes. Beaudine directed hundreds of films, most stylistically indistinguishable from one another, with titles like Get Off My Foot and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. But the great majority of his output was serviceable, unpretentious drive-in fodder for which Beaudine evidently made no apologies. Bela Lugosi had long since slipped from the "A" side of the double bill. In Voodoo Man, he approaches his role with the same happy, hammy bravado he brought to each and every one of his film performances, budget notwithstanding. Keeping pace with Bela's boundless thespics is George Zucco, a cultured actor with a languid, menacing delivery who always lent an outsized measure of class to the low-grade productions he found himself in. In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Zucco made for perhaps the most devilish Professor Moriarty in screen history, and brought his modulated rasp and regal bearing to a host of villainous portrayals throughout the 1940s. Rounding out an experienced trio of shock-film scenery chewers is the ubiquitous -- which is not to say unwelcome -- John Carradine. Suitably gaunt and greasy-haired, Carradine plays a rambling halfwit in Zucco's employ, ogling the bevy of beautiful zombettes that represent Zucco's failed experiments. Carradine effectively decoys hapless females as they pass by Zucco's service station. The buxom abductees are thence transported to Lugosi's rec room, which functions as a ceremonial chamber. Festooned in ostrich feathers and war paint, Zucco calls upon the great Ramboona to aid in their endeavors. Time and again their attempts to trans-migrate a fresh soul into the brain-dead body of Lugosi's zombified wife meet with failure and the search for a suitable subject continues. Undaunted, Zucco reassures Lugosi that, "Ramboona never fails!" Wanda McKay plays a sharp-tongued heroine betrothed to an aspiring B movie screenwriter, and she's convinced that the strange disappearances in the vacinity of Zucco's Gas 'n Go have box office potential. In an artistic huff, they flee the office of his producer whom they refer to cryptically as S.K. (Sam Katzman -- get it?) and motor anxiously to the scene of the crimes. You don't have to be Kreskin to predict what happens next; Wanda's snooping lands her in the clutches of Ramboona's minions, the ideal specimen to inhabit the cute cadaver of the late Mrs. Lugosi. Considering the morbid premise, the broad performances, the in-jokes, Beaudine's vaunted reputation for corner-cutting (and the notion of George Zucco checking your oil!), it's little wonder that Voodoo Man remains a highly regarded cult item. As Lugosi's fan-base grows unabetted, the Voodoo Man video particularly is a best seller at horror film and nostalgia conventions. A desire to see Zucco in film roles more worthy of his talents is countered by an equal measure of gratitude that he was willing to work in Poverty Row productions when his wallet demanded it. He might have walked away from Voodoo Man, but when would the opportunity to portray a 60-year-old gas station attendant who doubles as a voodoo priest present itself again? Voodoo Man is one of Katzman's best-known films, and that takes into account a staggering resume of low-budget programmers that includes The Giant Claw, Rock Around the Clock and the Jungle Jim and Bowery Boys series. On a great many of these projects, he relied on the same pair of journeyman directors, William Beaudine and Fred Sears, task-oriented craftsmen who should be saluted for accomplishing so much with so little money. Much of their ouvre is recalled today with great fondness by genre fans owing to an enthusiasm inherent in the films themselves that trancends their impoverished look. What special, intangible magic do these conspicuously cheap films possess? Ramboona never fails! The zombie films of the1940s ran the gamut from tasteful to tasteless. Only I Walked With a Zombie approximated the poetic, lyrical qualities of the Halperin Brothers' 1932 White Zombie (which featured one of Lugosi's best performances). Just why the advent of the second world war promulgated a zombie film boom is hard to determine. Did Poverty Row producers know something about the Nazi agenda that the allies weren't privvy to?: King of the Zombies (1941) Henry (Freaks) Victor plays Dr. Sangre, a third reich zombie breeder reluctantly welcoming crash-landers Dick Purcell, John Archer and Mantan Moreland to his island abode. Moreland's priceless delivery of one-liners and snappy rejoinders is the best reason to endure this cheapie, directed by genre-film veteran Jean Yarbrough, whose credits include The Devil Bat, House of Horrors and The Brute Man. Acting: C+ Atmosphere: B Fun: A- Revenge of the Zombies (1943) This time around, skeletal John Carradine is the zombie-making Mengele-like doctor, breeding a herd of ambulatory corpses in the Louisiana swamps. Robert Lowery and cute Gale Storm foil his efforts and the eye-bulging Mantan Moreland is, as always, eminently enjoyable. Acting: B- Atmosphere: B Fun: A- The Mad Ghoul (1943) With this film, Universal set out to prove that they could make a zombie film that was every bit as tacky as anything Monogram could produce. Haughty George Zucco is note perfect (as always) as the obsequiesce scientist who turns gullible David Bruce into a pasty-faced, heart-snatching zombie. Acting: B+ Atmosphere: C Fun: C+ Zombies on Broadway (1945) Zombies, gangsters, Bela Lugosi and Brown and Carney (the destitute man's Abbott and Costello) are not a pleasing combination. Lugosi is the ONLY reason to tire your eyeballs watching this stinker. The zombies aren't scary and the comics aren't funny. In summation, it's memorably forgettable. Acting: C Atmosphere: C Fun: C-