Villain(s)  Vampire-like killer

Actor(s):  Robert Livingston, Adrian Booth, Ian Keith, Thomas E. Jackson

Brief Description  Valley of the Zombies is a 56-minute B-horror film released by Republic Pictures on May 24, 1946. Directed by Philip Ford, the story follows Ormand Murks, a criminally insane man who fakes his death and returns from his family mausoleum to stalk the city for human blood. Despite the title, the film features no actual voodoo zombies, instead presenting Murks as a cape-wearing, vampire-like killer obsessed with blood transfusions for survival.

Plot:
The story kicks off when a substantial amount of blood is mysteriously stolen from the laboratory of Dr. Rufus Maynard. Shortly after, Dr. Maynard is confronted in his rooftop office by a cloaked, menacing figure named Ormand Murks. Five years prior, Maynard had committed Murks to an insane asylum because of his obsession with endless blood transfusions. Murks reportedly died on the operating table during an asylum surgery, but he has been brought back to life. Murks explains that jungle voodoo and "living death" keep him moving, but he can only continue breathing if he regularly ingests the hemoglobin of others who share his blood type. Because Dr. Maynard's refrigerator is out of blood, Murks kills the doctor and his lab assistant, Fred, by draining theirs.

When Dr. Maynard's half-buried body is discovered in a local cemetery, the police immediately cast suspicion on Maynard's innocent partner, Dr. Terrance "Terry" Evans, and his nurse girlfriend, Susan Drake. To clear their names from a dimwitted police lieutenant's accusations, Terry and Susan launch their own investigation. They uncover the dark history connecting Maynard to Murks and track the killer down to the spooky Murks family estate, where they must survive being trapped in a mausoleum to expose the truth. Filmed quickly in September 1945 and released on May 24, 1946, the movie utilizes standard "old dark house horror" tropes, snappy 1940s detective dialogue, and an eerie atmosphere despite its low budget. It stands as a unique historical artifact from Republic Pictures' early attempts at creating double-bill horror features.