11 Pre-1950 Zombie Movies You Should Watch

white zombie - bela lugosi 1

No.6 Bowery at Midnight (1942)

Director: Wallace Fox
Stars: Bela Lugosi, John Archer, Wanda McKay

Synopsis:

Kindly soup kitchen operator and professor of criminology Bela Lugosi uses his soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of daring robberies and murders. When things get out of hand, Lugosi kills his henchmen, who wind up as zombies in the cellar of the soup kitchen.


No.5 Revenge of the Zombies (1943)

Director: Steve Sekely
Stars: John Carradine, Gale Storm, Robert Lowery

Synopsis:
Scott Warrington and his hired detective, Larry Adams, arrive at an old mansion in the middle of a Louisiana swamp to meet his brother-in-law, Dr. Max von Altermann shortly after the death of Scott’s sister, Lila. Von Altermann, a Nazi who has been creating zombies for the armies of the Third Reich, has turned the deceased Lila into one of the undead as well, but is surprised when she shows signs of free will and challenges Max for control over his zombie thralls.


No.4 The Mad Ghoul (1943)

Director: James P. Hogan
Stars: David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, George Zucco

Synopsis:

Curious about the effects of an ancient Mayan nerve gas on humans, a scientist exposes his young assistant and turns him into a mindless ghoul that must have human heart substance to live.


No.3 I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Director: Jacques Tourneur
Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison

Synopsis:

A young Canadian nurse (Betsy) comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager (Paul Holland). Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants.


No.2 Zombies on Broadway (1945)

Director: Gordon Douglas
Stars: Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Bela Lugosi

Synopsis:

Two inept press agents are ordered to the island of San Sebastian to get a zombie for an opening night publicity stunt of a nightclub. They find a likely source in Dr. Paul Renault, who has spent much time studying (and experimenting) on the subject, but Renault has other ideas.


No.1 Valley of the Zombies (1946)

Director: Philip Ford
Stars: Robert Livingston, Lorna Gray, Ian Keith


Valley of the Zombies (1946) by MargaliMorwentari

Synopsis:

Dr. Maynard (Charles Trowbridge) tells Dr. Terry Evans (Robert Livingston) and his nurse, Susan Drake (Lorna Gray), about the theft of 10 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 and who later died from an operation, and Maynard learns that Murks is an example of living death whose abnormality is counter-acted only by blood. The doctor soon becomes Murk’s unwilling blood donor. Murks’ brother Fred (Earle Hodgins) threatens to expose him and he too is murdered. Terry and Susan find Maynard’s body near an abandoned graveyard and this leads them to an estate where a partially obscured sign reads:”Murks Bros.,Undertakers.” Susan is kidnapped.

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