User reviews

A bankrupt family are forced to move into an abandoned home in Los Angeles that they have inherited, only to find it occupied by a street gang when they arrive. The gang is ousted, but that doesn't put an end to the conflict. Complicating matters ... the house is haunted. While I admire the attempt to mix two genres here, neither genre is done particularly well. Still ... between the two, there's enough here to keep you moderately entertained. The actor and actress playing siblings in this film seem to forget these characters are related and play them as disturbingly flirty. The only actor you'll recognize here is Todd Bridges, which says volumes about the quality.

The Cates family inherited an old mansion in Beverly Hills from their late uncle Tyler Walker, who was a well-known stage actor. When they get there, they find the rundown place to be overrun by some street punks who want nothing but trouble. After the Cates' teenagers make fools of those punks, they want to make their lives living hell. But also their uncle Tyler's spirit still hangs around the house, and doesn't seems to like the street punks' intrusion.

Roger Corman's Concorde churns out an uneven, but well intended low-rent b-horror film that stage an entertainingly weird mixture, where it has the story criss-crossing into campy fields of supernatural and revenge, and then finally combining the two. Everything about it is stereotypical with the usual shenanigans, but director Bert Dragin does a well enough job with his pacing and makes the twisty style unpredictable and always engaging. Limitations don't hold it back, as the competent make-up and special f/x generates some creative and effective moments. It slowly builds itself up, for a crackerjack closing half. Some demented scenes towards the end, are well worth the attention. Sure the technical side of the production might not be perfect (with the boom mike constantly becoming visible), but it was surefooted. Zoran Hochstatter's murky camera-work sometimes had a neat frenetic touch and dreary colour use, and David Bergeaud's simmering music score stewed up some spooky cues to add to the atmospheric urban setting of the grand looking mansion. The gimmicky screenplay by Bert Dragin and Robert McDonnell seems to work, but if you don't take it for what it is. The ludicrous, and somewhat illogical and loose nature might be hard to shake. Also its change in moods, from being broodingly dark to suddenly comically light might be an inconsistent turn off. The script feels one-note for most part, but weaves in some amusing flourishes of dark humour; jaw-dropping dialogues and an oddly unforeseeable twist here and there. The performances are well suited and come across fair. Tom Bresnahan and Jill Whitlow are likable as the siblings. Christopher Burgard chews it up as smarmy gang leader and Todd Bridges shows up in a little part.

Junky entertainment, but I wasn't expecting the modest quality that it dished up. Fans of low-budget horror should give it a try.

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.

Obscure haunted house film I had never heard of, until I saw it paired on DVD with another film I was interested in seeing("The Evil") Only way Shout Factory could get anyone to buy it I suppose! Film itself is shoddy, with a derivative, unappealing story about a vengeful ghost and a biker gang, and characters(except the lovely Jill Whitlow, wasted here) and is directed without distinction, and looks amateurish. Dull and uninteresting film is a complete bust, with a lousy and unoriginal ending.

Forget it, unless you just have to watch a film you're forced to buy, because you want the other feature!

I got this film as a double feature pack...the other film was called "The Evil" and like this one was a bit of a haunted house film. That one was a better film than this one, this is mainly due to the fact that this film did not really seem to know what kind of film it was trying to be. At times it seems to be playing out like an after school special on bullying. There are points it seems like a comedy and finally at the end of the piece the horror elements finally come into play. Sure there are a few things here and there before that, to suggest that something supernatural is going on, but all the really good stuff is confined to like a ten minute stretch at the end of the film. "The Evil" took some time to get started too, but nothing like this one. So it kind of disappointed, though I should have known it would not be anything great when Todd Bridges of Different Strokes fame is the only actor of note I recognize!

The story has a number of clichés one associates with a haunted house film. A family moves into a new home after some turmoil in their lives and said new house has some strange secrets. The new addition they add though is a street gang that constantly harasses the brother and sister of the family. Though they are a very odd brother sister pair as they are kind of Angelina Jolie and her brother creepy. Well, dad's solution is to threaten them with a shotgun which at one point keeps said gang at bay for a couple of months. The son's strategy while mother and father are gone is to poke and antagonize said gang to the point of angering them into a murderous frenzy. At one point you think the movie is finally getting its act together, but this is just the son being idiotic. Finally, near the end, there is some stuff going down at the haunted house!

So the film has some things going for it. I was kept wondering what the heck was going to happen. I kept wondering when something was going to happen and there were a couple of nice kills near the tail end of the film. Though this is the second film I have viewed that implies that if a woman is having sex, she will not notice that she is being electrocuted! The problem with the film to me, is the tone. It just needed to go all in and be a horror. It just does not have a good atmosphere and to many times I forgot I was watching a rated R horror and then someone would drop the F bomb and I am like, "Yeah, that's right, this is R."

So in the end, the film takes to long to get going, but for that brief ten minute span it does deliver some of the goods. Not as good though as the film that it was paired with, though that one had kind of the opposite problem in that it kind of ended weakly, while this one took forever and ended on a strong note. Well, strong is probably to positive a word, it ended a least in a horror movie fashion. Which again, is the film's weakest point, the overall tone which seems to do to many different things.

As I'm writing this, in 2025, there's still a huge 80s horror-revival going on. Since several years already, in fact, and it looks as if it's becoming a subgenre on its own. Either the movies and TV-series supposedly take place in this great decade, OR the style and themes pay tribute to the wild & glorious horror flicks of the era. Many of these movies are great, or fun at least, but when I then see a genuine effort of the 1980s - like "Twice Dead" - I realize that nothing beats the real thing!

Some typically 80s guff can never be equaled, like an allegedly "tough" LA street gang of which the leader has a Flock of Seagulls haircut. Another member is a complete weirdo, and yet another one is a fat and clearly overaged guy who never steps off his bike. And, of course, there's the ravishing babe who gratuitously takes her top off for casual sex. Only authentic 80s movies can provide real 80s entertainment; - and that is that.

Okay, enough whiny nostalgia and misplaced romanticism, because "Twice Dead" obviously isn't a big masterpiece. It's a forgettable but more than fun enough combo between slasher, supernatural horror, and street gang action. A financially struggling family is relieved to move into an old and dilapidated mansion in Beverly Hills, which they inherited from an uncle. The house has a dark and more sinister family background, though, as we witnessed in the intro. Stage actor Tyler Walker committed suicide here in 1935, because the love of his life chose to be with another man, and his tormented - and excessively theatrical - ghost still haunts the place. But hey, since a violent gang of street thugs claimed the house as their own and terrorize the new owners, the bloody help of a vengeful ghost might even be useful!

There's zero tension, atmosphere-building, or plausibility. However, this gets widely compensated via a few brutal deaths, the presence of the cherubic Jill Whitlow (in love with her since "Night of the Creeps"), the perfect breasts of Charlie Spradling, and - once again - the authentic 80s vibes.

80s horror is awesome, and any horror buff will tell you that, but when you're into this sort of thing, there are so many movies you run across that basically just suck. This movie is one of those. The concept is somewhat interesting. A brother and sister are home alone in a haunted house their family recently inherited, but the antagonist isn't the ghost of the performer who once lived in the home. The bad guys in this movie are a group of punks who find their enjoyment in terrorizing the brother and sister. This is definitely a workable plot, but this movie fails on many different levels. First of all, the acting is the sort of stuff you see on bad television; second, the brother and sister are much more carefree and upbeat than they should be in their particular situation, and the gang of punks seems so sadistic that it is practically impossible to think that the police would not have done anything to protect this family. It is a cool idea that the ghost who haunts the house helps the brother and sister kill off the gang of punks, but the kill scenes are terribly uninteresting, and these scenes do not warrant the level of creativity which they attempt to convey. The ending is for those with a very very low attention span. If you're a huge horror buff, like me, then watch this movie for its intriguing concept. Everybody else- stay away.

When your main exposure to a movie is at 3 a.m. on Cinemax, that's not a good sign.

So it is with "Twice Dead", the old "family-moves-into-a-haunted-house-and-battles-vicious-gang" plot with the only twist of having "Diff'rent Strokes" vet/parolee Bridges in the cast.

This hack job (get it? Yuk-yuk.) is so cheaply made as to have you believe the ghost in this house uses fishing line to levitate objects and that actors don't really need acting classes when there's the direct-to-video market. 'Nuff said.

Any good parts? The girl playing Tina (Spradling) was cute; too bad she plays her last scene electrocuted while astraddle her boyfriend (don't even go there).

Other than that, "Twice Dead" is dead on arrival; call the morgue.

One star, for Spradling's charms. Now playing in the discount bin at your local video store.

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.

I recently watched Twice Dead (1989) on Tubi. The storyline follows a family that moves into a haunted house once owned by a deceased actor-or is he really gone? Meanwhile, a local gang takes a disliking to the kids in the family. When the parents leave the kids home alone, the gang breaks into the house to harass them, possibly with worse intentions. However, the gang doesn't realize they've intruded into a haunted house with a ghoul that might be deadlier than they are.

This film is directed by Bert L. Dragin (Summer Camp Nightmare) and stars Tom Bresnahan (The Kingdom), Jill Whitlow (Weird Science), Jonathan Chapin (Sixteen Candles), and Christopher Burgard (Border).

Twice Dead saves all the "good parts" for the end. It features classic 80s horror characters, attire, dialogue, and circumstances. The gang's outfits are hilariously fun. The acting is just okay, but the film makes good use of lighting, shadows, and colors to create intensity. For most of the film, kills and gore are limited, often showing someone about to die, then cutting to a corpse with blood. The motorcycle scene is hilarious and fun, and there's a memorable sex sequence kill. The film includes classic 80s horror nudity, and the absolute final scene is the best part of the movie.

In conclusion, Twice Dead is a fairly cliché and straightforward 80s horror film that doesn't stand out in the genre but is a must-see for fans of horror from this era. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend it only with appropriate expectations.

Those who enjoy trashy '80s horror served with a hefty dollop of cheeze will no doubt get a kick from Twice Dead, which benefits from a very silly plot, competent direction and a decent pace, likeable protagonists, loathesome baddies, some sexy ladies, a handful of gory deaths and even a supporting role for Todd Bridges of Diff'rent Strokes fame. High art it ain't, but it sure is entertaining.

The film opens in the 1930s, as film star Tyler Walker hangs himself, having been jilted by his love Myrna. Half a century later, and the Cates family -- Harry and Sylvia, and their kids Scott and Robin -- inherit Walker's mansion, which is supposedly haunted by the actor's ghost. Before they can move in, the family must get rid of the street gang who have been using the building as their playground. In doing so, they incur the wrath of the hoodlums, one of whom develops an interest in Robin (Jill Whitlow).

When their parents leave them alone for a couple of weeks, Scott (Tom Bresnahan) and Robin devise an elaborate (and preposterous) plan to scare off the gang once and for all. Instead, they further anger the thugs, who return to seek revenge. Luckily for the Cates kids, Tyler's ghost is on hand to help deal with their attackers.

For much of the runtime, Twice Dead is less horror and more teen drama, focusing on the kids's run-ins with lowlife Silk (Christopher Burgard), his equally scuzzy pals, Crip (Jonathan Chapin), Stony (Shawn Player), Melvin (Travis McKenna), and un-named gang member (Raymond Cruz). Less objectionable are the gang's ladies, appealing blonde Candy (Joleen Lutz) and sexy brunette Tina (Charlie Spradling). These altercations are entertaining enough, but the final act, in which the gang members get their ghostly comeuppance, is where the most fun is to be had, the bloody death scenes including a head crushed by dumb waiter, death by possessed motorbike, electrocution during sex (the gorgeous Spradling providing the obligatory nudity), and a shotgun blast to the head.

A silly storyline, cartoonish baddies, Todd Bridges being run down, fun splatter, and Spradling's big boobs equals a good time in my book. 7/10

I had the chance to get to sit down to watch the 1988 movie "Twice Dead" for the very first time here in 2021, just 33 years after the movie was released. I hadn't heard about it prior to watching it, so I didn't know what I was in for here, aside from it being a late 1980s horror movie.

And boy was it a late 1980s horror movie in every meaning of that phrase. This movie was so stereotypical for a horror movie from the end of the 1980s in every way. But hey, if you enjoy the movies back then, then you should feel right at home when you sit down to watch "Twice Dead" from writers Bert L. Dragin and Robert McDonnell.

The storyline told in "Twice Dead" was pretty straight forward, sort of thing "Return of the Living Dead", except you exchange the zombies with a vengeful ghost, and replace the cemetery and factory with an old, run-down mansion. Then you have a delinquent band of miscreants hellbent on wrecking havoc upon the new youngsters that just moved into town.

Visually then the movie was definitely a late 1980s product, and the passing of time has not been overly kind to the effects in the movie. I am sure that back in 1988s then the effects here were adequate, but today, well, not so much.

The acting in "Twice Dead" was adequate.

My rating of this stereotypical late 1980s horror movie settles on a mediocre five out of ten stars, as the movie doesn't really bring anything to the horror genre that hadn't been done already back in the day, and more often than not, done better even.

A preppy brother and sister very stupidly play a prank on a gang of heavies who have been making their life hell. Obviously they didn't take the gang seriously because of their Kajagoogoo hairdos. What they forgot was that this is the eighties, and even violent sadists had silly hair.

Naturally, the gang seek their revenge. The leader Silk wants to maim Preppy Boy, and the tough but attractive Crip wants to have his way with the sister. They're aided by a the obese Melvin, who's literally attached to his motorbike, and the stereotypical sex-crazed Latino.

The only person on the goody-goodies' side is the bloke who played Willis In Different Strokes. They don't have a chance

Why is it the actress you want to get her kit off in a film, never does? I mean, we have two really good looking women in this otherwise completely forgettable movie, but instead of seeing their assets we end up viewing.. the Playboy reject's silicone enhanced bosoms.I may not get what I want, but I get what I deserve.

Anyhoo, if you like endlessly recycled horror story lines you'll love this. Family on the verge of bankruptcy.. forced to move to an old dilapidated house.. a gang of hooligans start harassing them.. place turns out to be haunted.. the daughter resembles the ghost's true love.. family defends home when the thugs attack in force.. the spirit aids them by dispatching the gang members in various gory ways. Then it concludes with a COMPLETELY UNPREDICTABLE TWIST ENDING! You'll never guess..

The hooligans are by far the best thing about the film. Each one has got their own unique dress sense and personality traits which make them more interesting than the two bland leads. The violence is a lot more comical than scary half the time, and the blood is seemingly tomato sauce mixed up with red food dye (although in one case it is deliberately fake). Essentially, this isn't a brilliant film but with a no-name cast and limited financing, what do you expect? Worth a 4/10 just about..

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

The Cates family from Colorado moves into broken down Beverly Hills mansion.They discover not only does a gang of malicious punks hang out there,but so does the angry spirit of a deceased actor Tyler Walker who is not pleased some rebellious teens have taken over his property."Twice Dead" begins with lovingly surreal sequence in which an actor from silent era is dancing with a mannequin.It mixes light-hearted humour with gore and supernatural stuff.All characters in "Twice Dead" are stereotypes and the dialogue is often hilarious.As with most films in this genre there are a lot of plot holes and lack of logic or consistency,but the death scenes are quite cool.Even motorcycle is used as a murder weapon.8 out of 10 for cheesy "Twice Dead".