The Dead Don't Die

This long forgotten gem gets my vote as the gr8est zombie movie ever. it was creepy, scary and haunting. Some of DDDs images will stay with you for a long time. George Hamilton does a great job as the lead. I've seen him in a lot of comedic roles and on all those 70's-80's wacky game shows but he pulls this off as a serious actor.

I think the biggest mistake horror movies make is when they try too hard to mix comedy in and I was sure that, that was what Hamilton was supposed to do. BOY WAS I Surprised! You won't laugh once. Definitely one for the collection.

Buy it... wait till midnight, turn out the lights and enjoy DDD!

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.

This is a fun one. I remember being scared as hell. In an attempt to solve a murder mystery, George Hamilton finds himself in a town inhabited by zombies. He even has a love scene with one of them!! It would be cool to see a remake. There has never been a zombie movie movie quite like this one. Hope i find it on a video shelf some day.

Ralph Drake is about to be executed for the death of his wife, but he claims he's innocent and wouldn't dare harm her. His brother Don promises to find the real killer and clear his name. This leads him into an unusual world, where nothing seems quite right and he doesn't know who to really trust. The mysterious Vera LaValle warns him he's in trouble in if he digs deeper and he sees his dead brother. The only one who he can really turn to is Ralph's former employer Moss, who runs a marathon dance hall.

Traditional voodoo/occult mumbo jumbo is the source behind this quite eerie, foggy, and darkly atmospheric made for television horror fable. It's all about the mysterious story, and moody shades in what you call an old-fashion slow-burner, which throws around little edgy suspense and some knotty twists to keep the audience rather unsure if it's reality or nightmares affecting the protagonist. In that role George Hamilton gives a winning performance. The premise is penned by "Psycho (1968)" writer Robert Block and while it can drag in parts. Still the concept (like out of a crime-pulp novel) has a unique quality that goes well with the gloomy setting, 1930's time frame and some spooky set pieces that feature a prominently subtle, skin-crawling performance by Reggie Nalder. There are faults evident in the story's uncertain structure, but the dreamlike appearance helps slightly to iron out those creases. Those looking for zombie action will only get it in minor, if unspectacular doses. Director Curtis Harrington goes about things very low-key, but competently puts it together and executes a shadowy tenor. The film has that washed-out look, but the camera-work is crisply tailored and the ominous sting in the electronic music score adds to the able production. A top cast, commits highly to the production. Hamilton and Nalder are perfect. Ray Milland is boldly effective as Moss and Linda Cristal smoothly glides through her part as Vera. In admirably solid support parts are Joan Blondell, Ralph Meeker and James McEachin. Yvette Vickers also makes a colourfully quick appearance.

A delightfully decent TV chiller.

Made in the heyday of the TV movie-of-the-week, "The Dead Don't Die" can be best thought of as "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" meets "Night of the Living Dead" meets "Chinatown." Written by Robert Bloch and directed by Curtis Harrington, who a couple years earlier had made a truly strange, old-fashioned horror MOW called "The Cat Creature," this film features a host of reliable Golden Age Hollywood actors in cameos, including Joan Blondell, Ralph Meeker, Milton Parsons and William Benedict. It also gives creepy Reggie Nalder a good role, and he's almost as frightening here as he was in "Salem's Lot," but without the extreme makeup. Some eerie zombie scenes and an effective score add to the film's pluses. The minuses, however, start from the top. George Hamilton is badly miscast as the hero who seeks to find out who really murdered the wife of his brother, who was tried and executed for it, but was, of course innocent. The character is supposed to be a tough sailor, but Hamilton gives more of an imitation of a hungover Bruce Dern, saying his lines with the conviction of a script girl. Ray Milland as a sleezy dance-marathon promoter, whom Hamilton manages to convince that he's sees dead people, including his brother, also phones it in. Linda Cristal as a French femme fatale with a Spanish accent at least tries. The period detail is superficial, with the men's hair styles and costumes straight out of the 1970s (as are Billy Benedict's modern eyeglasses). Given the particpation of Bloch and Harrington, the plodding, talky script and flat TV-style direction is particularly disappointing. This seems to have scared a lot of people in 1975, but now, even at 72-minutes, it seems to go on forever. And anyone who can't figure out who the villain of the piece really is must be a genuine zombie.