Twice Dead - Du stirbst nur zweimal

You have to like a movie that has a good plot, this is one of them but very confusing. Not bad considering it was one of many 1980's, direct-to-video, shown late at night on Cinemax, horror flicks. It starts out in the early 1930's and actor Tyler Walker dancing with a woman who is stiff as a board, then three men(one in a fur coat) come by to get Tyler out of his home. THe next thing you see is Tyler stabbing his dance partner that turns out to be a mannequin, then he hangs himself. Fast Forward to the present where a family of four moves into the house. Turns out the fur-coat guy became the new owner of the home that fateful night, then turned it into a funeral parlor and it was then left to a relative and his family. The family is forced to move in after going bankrupt in Colorado. But upon arrival they're greeted by a gang who use the place as a hangout. One gang member "Crypt" seems to act very weird, talking in a slow, low voice and pre-occupied with the family daughter Robin. Of course, the usual ensues where the son Scott hears bumps in the night, then the family is tormented by the bikers, Robin and Scott get back at them, then the gang returns to get revenge. All comes to a very quick conclusion, with the help of Tyler's ghost, who can be seen in the mirror. The ghost helps kill the bikers except for one, who re-creates Tyler's fateful night back in the 30's with Robin. In the end, instead of Tyler's ghost in the mirror, it's Crypt since he hung himself too. By the movie's end we learn that Tyler and his dance partner/co-star Myrna were in love.They had a love child, Tyler left the home to Myrna but she ended up marrying the fur coat guy who is the family's great uncle. Myrna bares a striking resemblance to her niece, Robin.

Now for the confusing parts: 1) We see Tyler in the beginning, dancing with a real woman then in the next shot it's a mannequin. Are we getting a peek into his depravity or is it all part of a hoax on the filmmaker's to make us think we see a woman? If the later, then why? 2) Tyler tries to kill Scott by wrapping a noose around his neck. Then it's only when the biker's grab Robin that Tyler shakes the bed to wake Scott up. Why did Tyler go from scaring the brother to helping him? It's obviously because Robin reminds Tyler of his former love, but why go through that one scene of scaring the son, to me it was unnecessary to the plot. 3)The fur coat guy had the deed to the home in the beginning of the film, yet we learn Tyler left it to his love and she had died in 1987 in a sanitarium. Who left the house to the family? Fur coat guy or Myrna? Maybe she signed it over to her husband? 4)Tyler is seen stabbing a mannequin in the beginning and even appears in Robin's mirror looking like he wants to stab her, yet he never hurt her or his first love. Why the stabbing set up? Is it to show that he was so angry with her new marriage that he acted out his anger on a dummy but never hurt her? That's fine, but why show him in Robin's mirror with a knife if he wants to protect her? 5) Crypt, we learn is Tyler and Myrna's grandson, who relives his grandad's last night. We even see Crypt trying to stab Robin but Tyler retract's the knife. Did Tyler know this was his relative? Is that why Crypt was spared? and why was Crypt so intent on killing Robin when his grandfather didn't kill Myrna? AGain, if anything, Tyler was trying to protect Robin from any harm. Tyler was nuts, but not violent and it's obvious his love Myrna spent her last years in an institution. Maybe this made Crypt's dad twice as unstable? 6)Crypt is haunting the place at the end, what happened to Tyler and why is he letting Crypt try to attack the girl?(at the end Robin has a dream that Crypt tried to stab her and when she wakes up, she doesn't notice but there's a knife in her pillow). 7)Robin and Scott, at one point, lure the biker's in the house and knock them out one at a time then. After one his knocked out, Scott and Robin make it look like the gang member was murdered by the ghost so that the other gang members would run away. The next day, Robin and Scott drop the gang members off in different areas yet we never see how they got Crypt down and what they did with him.

Great movie if you can find it on ebay

Scott (Bresnahan) is an FX genius (as opposed to an actor) who needs to call upon all his skills and more upon when he and his sister find themselves in their home at the mercy of a group of scumbags who have obviously watched STRAW DOGS once too often!

Further help comes courtesy of a resident ghost in this low rent piece of garbage that barely saw a theatrical release. A few fleeting laughs at the occasional fx employed but the highlight of the flick remains the electrocution scene. Warning folks: don't try this at home, it may be dangerous!

Mega bomb!

Sometime around the depression, film star Tyler Walker is dancing in his home with a lifeless-seeming woman. Two policemen and a man in furs arrive to take his home. While in good shape, the house is largely empty due to Tyler selling most of the contents. The three men burst into the third-story room Tyler is in, finding that he has stuck a knife in the woman, who is just a mannequin, and Tyler has hung himself.

Years later, a couple with a son, daughter and cat named "Meow" are moving into a house they've inherited from their Uncle. The neighborhood is not so nice, and as they arrive there's a gang hanging out on their front lawn. The cops chase them off, but it's clear they'll be back and that one of them has an unhealthy attraction to the daughter. The cops call the house the "old Tyler place," which is a bit odd; usually people call a house by the *last* name of the owner. It's now in pretty bad shape, and they set about fixing it up. It had at some point over the years been used as a funeral home, and there is an empty casket in the basement, and a broken-down hearse.

The son and daughter have several run-ins with the gang, who are pretty set on hurting people for fun. One of the women in the gang isn't too bad, and two of the members are mainly interested in making out with each other, but the rest would be perfectly happy to even kill someone.

The son and daughter glimpse Tyler in mirrors in the house, but aren't sure what they saw. Tyler's noose snakes itself around the son, but later in the movie Tyler helps protect the two from the gang.

The gang stages a couple assaults on the house. One time, the siblings scare them off with a combination of booby traps and special effects. Another time, Tyler starts killing people, including using a dumbwaiter.

There are a couple false ends to the movie, and it is unclear what might happen next. Pretty good movie, though.

One of the better examples of the 80's on how to mix the horror and comedy genres successfully. This film is about a family moving into a house that is haunted by the ghost of a once great actor. A few neighborhood punks cause trouble though and eventually try to take the house over and kill the family, but the ghost helps them out and dispatches of the punks in violent and creative ways.

Very low budgeted, but fast paced thriller with only average to poor performances and ok direction. It is extremely entertaining though with some very good f/x and an especially exciting finale.

Rated R; Graphic Violence, Nudity, Sexual Situations, and Profanity.

This movie was definitely cheesy. I saw this movie a long, long, long time ago on cable television. I enjoyed the movie because I was a child watching a rated R movie. It was a typical B-rated movie with blood and gore and sex and drugs and violence. You know, the essence of the 80's.