Not as bad as the title suggests. There are some creepy moments and yes some unintended laughs and bad acting but it’s still worth a look if you’re almost out of things to watch. A group of treasure hunters are after some diamonds that are in a safe on a sunken ship off the African coast. The job would be a lot easier if it wasn’t for all those zombies.
Jan Peters is being driven to her Granny’s house when Sam the driver hits a man in the road. He keeps going. Jan tells Granny (Marjorie Eaton) but Sam tells Granny it was “one of them.” She’ll tell Jan about it later. Meanwhile offshore on a boat there’s a group led by George Harrison. His shrew wife Mons (Allison Hayes) is there along with diver Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer) and Dr.Jonathan Eggert (Morris Ankrum).
They’re planning to retrieve a load of diamonds from the sunken Susan B. While they gab a sailor named Johnson is pulled overboard by a zombie. Harrison fires a couple shots but they don’t have any effect. When they get onto land and meet Granny she gives them a tour through a graveyard. She says it contains the bodies of all the expeditions through the century that tried for the diamonds. There’s even some fresh graves dug just for Harrison and his group. Mona manages to fall into one. She’s carried into the house.
Granny tells Eggert that back in 1894 the crew of the Susan B stole a cache of diamonds from a temple. Ten men were killed in a battle for them and are now zombies who guard them from all comers. Her husband was the ship’s Captain. Later she tells Jan she hopes the diamonds are destroyed so her husband can finally rest.
Jan asks Jeff to help her find the man Sam ran over. On the road they find seaweed and some footprints. The zombie is hiding in the bushes keeping an eye on them. Finally he grabs Jan and carries her off. Jeff isn’t the smartest guy out there. The zombie leaves footprints and Jan screams her head off but he can’t find her. He finally tracks them down to a mausoleum where the zombies hang out. He remembers Granny saying they’re afraid of fire and he uses his handy torch to get Jan out of there.
The next day Jeff dives down into the ship and finds the safe. The zombies find him. They cut his air hose but he’s pulled on board in time and is taken back to the house. Granny comes up with a potion that’ll bring him around. Mona runs into the room and accuses Jan of trying to take Jeff away from her. George gets jealous, slaps Mona and she runs out.
George and Jeff go to the mausoleum and there’s Mona deader than a doornail surrounded by her new zombie friends. After firing a bunch of flares at them the guys grab Mona and take her back to the house where Granny pronounces her dead. Maybe so but that doesn’t slow her down. That night she grabs a knife, takes a walk and kills one of the crew. Mona is carries back to her room and the bed is surrounded by candles so she’ll stay put.
The next day Jeff takes another dive and George is right behind him. Jeff finds the safe and starts to get it open. Meanwhile George is surrounded by the zombies.
There’s some action to come and the expected ending. This would be the third or fourth feature at the drive-in weekend creep fest but it’s not the disaster a lot of similar movies turned out to be.
Jan better wake up and see who’s there
That darn “African Voodoo Coast’.