The Dead Don't Die

Scripted by Robert"Psycho"Bloch,the DDD is a very spooky movie indeed!George Hamilton is a man determined to find the TRUE killer of his brother's wife.He is drawn into a shadowy world where the dead won't stay dead!With creepy Reggie"Salem's Lot"Nalder as a scary dead/undead guy.Is everything George sees real or a nightmare?Ray Milland and Joan Blondel co-star.Very Spooky indeed.

A thought provoking view of how people may or may not enter into the other side. I found this film to be a very good late night movie.

In 1930s Chicago, a sailor attends his brother's execution, and then starts to see his dead brother everywhere. A mysterious woman warns the sailor to leave town, but instead he begins to look into his brother's past, with the help of a gruff police sergeant (Ralph Meeker) and the brother's former employer, a dance hall owner (Ray Milland). What he finds goes beyond what we consider reality. A very young and handsome George Hamilton stars as the befuddled sailor and Linda Cristal is the bewitching mystery woman. Curtis Harrington directed from a Robert Bloch story, and the atmosphere is creepy and at times nightmarish. Harrington leave no doubt about where things are going by starting off with the brother's execution followed closely by a scene in the dance hall featuring a bunch of marathon dancers looking like the living dead. Within the strict limits of a 1970s ABC-type TV movie, Harrington even lays on a bit of true horror, in a scene when when Hamilton is trapped in a funeral home with a walking corpse intent on murder (Reggie Nalder of "Salem's Lot" fame). There's also a taut sequence in a graveyard when Hamilton and the dance hall owner dig up the deceased brother's grave. And the final showdown takes place in an old-fashioned slaughterhouse that takes on the feel of a hospital morgue. Nicely done, although no one in the star-studded cast is called upon to emote much.

I remembered seeing this movie when it first aired (on NBC, I think), and I seemed to remember it being above average for a TV movie. So I found a copy of it for under $5 and watched it again, nearly 30 years later. Wow, what a difference time and experience make. The premise is an interesting one, and the film relies more on subtlety than shock value. But, man is it slow. I found myself losing interest in it a couple of times. This is a movie that screams to be remade.

"The Dead Don't Die" is a genuinely creepy and inventive 70's made-for-TV gem that regretfully ended up in total oblivion, and this in spite of the involvement of several really highly acclaimed names in the horror industry, like writer Robert Bloch ("Psycho", "Torture Garden"), director Curtis Harrington ("Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?", "What's the Matter with Helen?") and a long series of veteran cast members (Ray Milland, George Hamilton, Ralph Meeker, Reggie Nalder, …). Even more impressive than the names is the screenplay's ability to actually evoke real frights and maintain a continuously unsettling atmosphere. This is story-driven suspense without fancy make-up effects or spectacular stunts, but definitely with a handful of unforgettable jump scenes like, for example, the electric chair execution near the beginning and a corpse emerging from its coffin somewhere halfway through the film. George Hamilton stars as a former sailor called back home to attend the execution of his brother Ralph for a murder he swears he didn't commit. Don vows to clear Ralph's name and find out who really committed the crime his brother got punished for. Searching in sinister places and encountering uncanny people, Don discovers that his brother wasn't actually framed for murder but merely 'selected' for execution by an expert in the occult who wanted Ralph to serve in his army of the undead. The plot isn't exactly plausible, but nevertheless convincingly brought by cast and crew. The events supposedly take place in the 1930's and Curtis Harrington masterfully recreates the grim atmosphere of that decade with exact period details (like vehicles and costumes) and a cheap looking type of cinematography lacking color. Then there's also a copious amount of slick details that are just plain bizarre and indescribably eerie, like a dance hall full of near dead couples and one cute lady spontaneously combusting! Ray Milland is terrific and reliable as always, while Reggie Nalder is one of the creepiest actors who ever lived. "The Dead Don't Die" comes very much recommended, if you can find a decent copy of course.