The Dead Don't Die

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.

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.

Pretty good horror film from Robert Bloch (Psycho) and Curtis Harrington (Ruby). This one's a doozy. George Hamilton plays a guy whose brother is executed for a crime he didn't commit. There's a spooky execution scene, and then George has to find out the truth. Upon investigation Hamilton discovers zombies. Set in the '30s or '40s ( I can't remember ) this is a particular creepy TV movie I originally saw in 1975. Reggie Nalder (Salems' Lot) plays a zombie. The scene in a funeral parlor with Nalder rising from the dead is really cool. Ray Milland also stars and is his slimy best. Pretty good and shocking for a TV movie.

This rather unknown '70s telefilm from the artisan Harrington can delight any non-demanding moviegoer thanks to the mix of genres and its sinister atmosphere. Set in the 30s, the film mixes gangster movies with classic terror in a plot that includes zombies, a sect that practices voodoo, the dance marathons typical of the Great Depression that one knows from movies like 'They Shoot Horses, Don't The?' (Sidney Pollack, 1969) and disturbing sequences in morgues, cemeteries and funeral homes. In addition to an execution in the electric chair at the beginning of the film.

To this set of morbid ingredients is added a cast led by George Halmiton, who plays a sailor obsessed with laundering the honor of his brother executed with capital punishment after being accused of murder, and which also includes Ray Milland, Linda Cristal. or Joan Blondell. All of them do their job with solvency in a film in which the mystery and creepy sensations remain until the end.

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.