War of the Zombies (1964)

Distributed theatrically in Italy as ROMA CONTRO ROMA in 1964, the film was cut for foreign release, with its original 110 minute running time reduced to 97 minutes for the UK release, titled ROME AGAINST ROME. It was cut even further for its AIP release in the USA, where it was called WAR OF THE ZOMBIES.

Director Giuseppe Vari’s WAR OF THE ZOMBIES, starring John Drew Barrymore, Susy Andersen and Ettore Manni, came out towards the end of the boom in peplum films. In 1964 A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was in release, kick-starting a wave of Italian spaghetti westerns that rapidly replaced the sword-and-sandal flicks.

'Unconquerable warriors of the damned!' — ‘Unconquerable warriors of the damned!’

With a second act that drags, WAR OF THE ZOMBIES was never going to be good enough to stave off the encroaching onslaught of Italian westerns, but it is a watchable lesser peplum, focusing on a villainous Salmacian high priest called Aderbad (played by Drew Barrymore’s dad John), who uses the power of his country’s goddess to bring dead Roman soldiers back to life. Aderbad’s plan is to use them as an undead/ghost army to fight back against Rome itself.

The film boasts a really quite impressive main set featuring a large stone head of the cyclopean goddess, hypnotised women walking across hot coals, a voodoo doll, mangle-faced minions and stock footage from previous, bigger budgeted movies.

The cool main set with the huge head of the Salmacian goddess

Despite AIP’s attention-grabbing title, the undead Roman soldiers that Aderbad raises in this movie are actually ghosts rather than zombies. This ‘ghost army’ is brought to the screen via the simple use of footage of mounted soldiers taken from previous movies, but with a ‘supernatural shadow’ added on top.
However, I actually think this live-Romans-vs-undead-Romans climax is pretty memorable, thanks to Roberto Nicolosi’s score, which utilises eerie choral voices very effectively.