The Mad Ghoul (1943)

A science professor (George Zucco) is obsessed with a nerve gas used by the ancient Mayans in their human sacrifice rituals. The professor is attracted to the girlfriend (Evelyn Ankers, Universal's resident scream queen) of one of his students so he decides to experiment on the student (David Bruce) which turns him into a zombie. Directed by James Hogan, who had just signed a contract with Universal studios but died before the movie was released. This is yet another of the prolific B horror movies ground out by Universal in the 1940s, all of them varying in quality. This one is middling. Zucco, no surprise, is suitably diabolical as the unethical doctor but David Bruce does very well as the student turned into the living dead. In fact, he's rather touching. Fans of the Universal horror catalog should be pleased. I enjoyed it but it's definitely a minor entry in the Universal canon. With Charles McGraw, Turhan Bey, Robert Armstrong, Rose Hobart and Milburn Stone.