The Dead Talk Back

I saw this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as I am sure most people did. What is interesting is that this film may have been made in the 50's, it was never officially released until 1993 by one of those video companies that released more obscure stuff back in the day. This film caught the eye of crew of MST3K for obvious reasons and this film probably became more well known and famous than anyone who worked on it ever thought it would be. It is bad, do not get me wrong, but I did find it very amusing and at times even interesting. As far as fodder for MST3K this is more watchable than more of few films they have done in the past. The movie contains horrid acting for the most part as the police officers were the best actors and that is not saying a lot. The scientist, Henry Krasker, put in an over the top performance that made him very amusing and the film was more awesome when he was in it! What is more interesting is the ways they try to illicit confessions in some of the scenes, the ones that did not just kind of stop suddenly.

The story, Renee, a woman who lives in a boarding house is going to be murdered. This is in no way a spoiler as a voice over is going to literally keep informing you of her diminishing time to live. He nearly calls it down to the second! Afterwards, the police try to figure out who could have killed this young lady with a crossbow and they suspect nearly every male in the boarding house, except Henry Krasker who is working on a way to talk to the dead. He will assist the police as they try and track down the killer and hold a wacky seance or two while they're at it. Who could the killer be and will Krasker's radio to communicate with the dead be used by Renee to identify her killer?

This made for an excellent episode of MST3K. The only weak part to this episode is the short that precedes the film about ice cream freezers. Never a really big fan of the shorts they did, though there were a couple of good ones. The jokes for the film itself were great as every time Krasker was on the screen they had plenty of fodder to riff on. Not only him, nearly every character was done in such a cartoon like way that there was not shortage of jokes they could make as you had the very suspicious German man with a dark past, the self proclaimed preacher man, the cool cat who wanted to work as a radio DJ and several more!

So this was not a good film by any means; however, they had an interesting enough story so that the thing made for a great MST3K episode throughout. The film also featured crossbow killings, models with secrets, record store clerks with secrets, everyone with secrets and did I mention the bongo players? In the film for maybe two minutes max and they get in the opening credits! So, if you want to see this film, watch the MST3K version and you will not be disappointed and remember, you too may only have 37 minutes left to live!

The producer of this movie must have been a big fan of Coleman Francis. His choice to put Aldo Farnese (who??) in the lead role of this horrible film was his first mistake. Making the movie at all was his second mistake. Its quite obvious why the film sat on the shelf for 30 years after its making. Whoever made the decision to dust it off and release it must have been insane. Thankfully the fine folks at Mystery Science Theater 3000 got a hold of it and gave it the treatment it deserved, and made this embarrassingly bad movie a fun thing to watch after all.

The Dead Talk Back. Weren't they irritating enough when they were alive? This is a somewhat odd "who done it?" tale of a crossbow murder at a boarding house. The story is basically told through the eyes of one police Lt.Lewis investigating the crime and the amateur sleuth helping out. Mr Krasker, the amateur sleuth, believes the departed can be contacted and communicated with. Therefore his services are highly sought by the police in solving the murder. All boarders are suspect. Who done it? Is it the bible quoting potentate of righteousness, the homely Miss Byington, the withdrawn record clerk, the refined DJ, the landlady, Frits Kreuger, or Mr. Krasker himself?? Marvel as Mr. Krasker devises a plan to nab the murderer. Recommended for murder mystery buffs and those who talk to the dead or are thinking about it.

At the opening, you see some guy in a trench coat running around in the dark, watching two people on a date. Soon, this detached scene makes way for some recluse masquerading as a "scientist" who welcomes you into his quasi-Halloween type laboratory. He demonstrates for you an array of inventions here, such as a fog horn you can take to your grave, in case you wake up in your coffin after being buried. He also shows you a pebble that he uses to tune into dead peoples' radio stations. He has hair that looks like Don King on steroids, and he sounds like Pee Wee Herman's evil twin.

A brutal murder of a woman at a boarding house where a crossbow is used (!) is counted down to with a stop watch, as you meet the other tenants, who are the suspects in the killing: the elderly landlord, the victim's friend, a bible thumping zealot, a toothy-voiced DJ on a 5 watt radio station, a stereotypical German guy, a wimpy underweight peeping-Tom, and the landlord's daughter and bratty grandchildren. The characterizations are wonderfully and comically over-emoted and strained to the breaking point, especially by the wimp, the German, and the zealot. These guys are hysterical, but then, so is the bizarre version of a seance, where the goofy scientist tries out his invention to contact the victim. I love the red herring conclusion, which absent-mindedly ignores the whole premise of the movie.

The odd thing is how seriously the movie takes itself, as it endeavors to portray psychic investigations, and mix it with a murder mystery. The acting, scripting, and editing make this "strange case" come off as ludicrous camp. The MST3K gang had a field day with this one, and any connoisseur of humorously inept film making needs to see this movie.

No film was ever more aptly titled then "The Dead Talk Back". This shoestring stinker was completed by people, most all of whom were never associated with another film, then stuck on a shelf to rot; sometime around 1956. Unearthed by Siester Cinema Video and then shown to great effect on MST3K, if ever a film was called back from the great beyond, surely it was this one. And how lucky we are that it is so. "The Dead Talk Back" is an amazing, funny, arresting piece of garbage that has to be seen to be believed. It stands proudly with the films of Ed Wood, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" and other such things. The story is about a murder at a boarding house, solved by the police with the help of a weirdo researcher with a smug, self important attitude. The plot weaves in and out of seemingly (and perhaps authenticly) irrelevant details. The murderer dumps his shoes to hide the shoe prints, but leaves the murder weapon close to the body hidden under some newspapers. The whole thing has a weird stiltedness that really does recall Diane Arbus. There is an excellent chase down Hollywood Blvd. that really lets you see what it looked like at the time. I would recommend this movie to any bad film fan or person with a taste for the mindbending.