The Dead One

I now know of 2 people in the world who have seen this rare movie from Barry Mahon, myself and my girlfriend. A lost movie has been found. Now we just have to ask, was it worth it? Barry Mahon is best known for his "Adults Only" films from the early 1960's. Perhaps best remembered for THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN, a story about a killer gorilla loose in a nudist colony (hey I just review 'em I don't write 'em!). You cannot take any of those so-called "nudie cuties" seriously because they never took themselves seriously; they were there to enjoy and that was that. THE DEAD ONE on the other hand is . . .dare I say it? . . .deadly serious. Set in the back country of Louisiana it involves a plantation run by a woman who fears losing control to her recently married cousin. To fight losing the business she has run single handed for many years she uses voodoo to bring her dead brother back to life to kill off her relatives. Makes sense to me. The zombie, who at times resembles Alice Cooper, is very effective. The plot is very well handled, the photography is competent and the acting is . . .well . . .okay in most cases. Barry could indeed handle a serious genre entry and it was nice to re-discover this film. Sam Sherman, head of Independent International has . . .er . . .dug up the film and released a beautiful print in widescreen and colour under the title BLOOD OF THE ZOMBIE. Oh yes, the low budget shows. The film is padded with scenes of 2 hot jazz bands (one of which plays a hot version of "When The Saints Go Marching In")and a stripper called Bella-Bella; and at times the dialogue is hilarious. One classic moment occurs when the husband and wife discover a victim of the rampaging zombie. The husband grimly says "She's dead." and the wife responds with "But can't we help her?" Is THE DEAD ONE or BLOOD OF THE ZOMBIE worth seeing? Yes! You just might find yourself having fun in spite of yourself.

Now, this is one boring film! For such a short film, they sure find a lot of time for nothing to happen, which is a shame because I was looking forward to this one.

You've got your playboy jazz guy who's settling down in a plantation he's inherited, but not after taking his new bride to see some jazz, some other jazz, and a belly dancer (that must every new bride's dream honeymoon!). Boringly, his cousin, who's mental, is doing voodoo at the plantation and resurrecting her dead brother so he can kill the new bride for some reason (seems awfully complicated when a simple gunshot would do). This involves a lot, and I mean a LOT, of bongo abuse. Seriously, the guy in this film hammers those bongos so much I'd expect his fingers were the size of Arnie's biceps by the time they'd finished the film.

So, near enough the first three quarters of this film are uneventful, so by the time they have the dead guy shuffling about looking to throttle someone, you'll be sound asleep. It did dawn on me that the zombie resembled Diamond Dogs era, coke-addled Bowie, so that gave me a chuckle, as did the ending, where the hero was all like "Well, cops…that's what happened. See ya!".

You might derive fun from this. The print you can get in the UK is one of the best I've seen for such an old film.

Writer/Director/Producer Barry Mahon, who gave us Santa and the Three Bears, started out with cheesy flicks like this one, also known as Blood of the Zombie.

Despite the low grade script by Mahon, and the Grade Z acting, this was a fascinating zombie picture, set appropriately in New Orleans.

John MacKay may be investigating fellow cops on "Law & Order" but this baby is in his early career. His wife, Linda Ormond, was probably too ashamed to make another movie, as was the zombie, Uncle Jonas (Clyde Kelly), who was the perfect zombie. he had the clothes and the walk and the movement down pat. He should be in the Zombie Hall of Fame, if there is one.

Good for a laugh and a look at the career work of Barry Mahon, an interesting character.

The Dead One stars John McKay and Linda Carlton as newlyweds John and Linda (what inspired names!) who, after a tour of New Orleans jazz joints and girlie bars (what new wife doesn't enjoy a visit to a strip joint on her wedding night?), drive to John's ancestral plantation Kenilworth, which he is due to inherit as a result of getting married. En route, the couple stop to help exotic belly dancer Bella Bella (Darlene Myrick), whose car has broken down, and invite her to spend the night at the plantation.

On arrival, John, Linda and Bella are greeted by John's cousin Monica (Monica Davis), current owner of Kenilworth, who isn't at all happy that the property will soon be taken from her. In order to prevent the deeds from being transferred, Monica conducts a voodoo ceremony with the help of her loyal staff, resurrecting her dead brother Jonas (Clyde Kelly) and sending him on a mission to kill John's new wife. Proving that you can't trust a shuffling corpse with even the simplest of tasks, Jonas kills Bella by mistake. On discovering Bella's body, John investigates (leaving his wife alone in the house with a gun) and catches Monica in mid-ritual—but can he save Linda before Jonas carries out his mission?

Directed by Barry Mahon, who would later go on to carve himself quite a career in the 'nudie' film industry, this obscure voodoo zombie film is, like the 'dead one' of the title, a bit of a shambling mess, with unbelievably bad performances, dreadful dialogue, lacklustre direction, and obvious padding in the form of the excessive New Orleans nightlife footage (viewers are treated to two jazz performances and a couple of exotic dances) and overlong voodoo sequences. What is rather remarkable, however, is quality of the crisp, colour-rich photography, which is far better than one might imagine for such a cheap production, and the look of zombie Jonas, who is supremely creepy with his gaunt face, talon-like fingernails and long hair of death (shame that he moves so bloody slow; it detracts slightly from his scariness).

Not great, but worth a look for zombie movie completists and any time-travelling jazz fans planning a trip to 1960s New Orleans.

Over thirty years ago in his eternally cherishable 'Keep Watching the Skies!' the late Bill Warren raised the fascinating and still unresolved question of the possible existence south of the Mason-Dixon line of a cottage industry producing sci-fi and horror films made and distributed only in the American South on a states' rights basis, "rarely if ever surfacing in other parts of the country, even on television". On page 867 of the revised edition of his book, 'The Dead One' - made by a company called 'Mardi Gras Productions'- is one of four titles Warren mentions by name that achieved this leap.

Remarkably glossily photographed by Mark Dennes on location in and around New Orleans in Eastmancolor and 'Ultrascope', it looks good but the tinny sound betrays its low budget; and it moves as slowly as the late cousin Jonas.

After an interminable tour of nightlife in New Orleans as it was in 1960, the action then takes until well after the halfway mark for mad cousin Monica to use voodoo drums to raise her late brother Jonas from the dead. Cousin Jonas - as an earlier reviewer observed - resembles Alice Cooper in black tie. The film's title lays its cards on the table about having just the one zombie (unlike Herschel Gordon Lewis's boastfully titled 'Two Thousand Maniacs!') who anticipates the zombies - whose sheer numbers were what made them such a formidable threat - in 'Night of the Living Dead' (not to mention Cooper's own appearance in John Carpenter's 'Prince of Darkness').

Monica Davis as the malevolent Monica gives both the worst and the most compelling performance in the film - well complemented by Margaret Johnston's vengeful old harpy in 'The Night of the Eagle' (screened under its US release title, 'Burn, Witch, Burn'), with which this was paired in a double bill in Seattle in May 1962

The cops as usual are useless - arriving late and then shooting the wrong person - but as one of them laconically observes, "How would you have explained this if we hadn't gotten here in time to see it?".