The Dead Don't Die (1975)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

"The Dead Don't Die" is set in the 1930s. When the film begins, Don Drake (George Hamilton) is visiting with his brother...just before the brother is to be executed for a murder he insists he didn't commit. He begs Don to investigate the killing and find the real murderer. As for Don, he was in the Navy and couldn't help until now...and he's committed to finding the truth. The trail leads to some weird places...and during his investigation he gets a glimpse of his dead brother walk about town! He chases him but the zombie-fied brother escapes. The trail leads to a zombie master named Varek---and Varek is intent on killing Don! What is going on here?!In many ways, this film is like a 1940s horror film--but in color and made for television. It has a super-creepy atmosphere, over the top characters and features a villain who was surprisingly easy to defeat at the end. Combine this with few nice supporting actors (Ray Milland, Joan Blondell and Ralph Meeker) and you've got a film that's stupid but very enjoyable! Worth seeing but don't try to think too much when you watch!

In 1930s Chicago, a sailor attends his brother's execution, and then starts to see his dead brother everywhere. A mysterious woman warns the sailor to leave town, but instead he begins to look into his brother's past, with the help of a gruff police sergeant (Ralph Meeker) and the brother's former employer, a dance hall owner (Ray Milland). What he finds goes beyond what we consider reality. A very young and handsome George Hamilton stars as the befuddled sailor and Linda Cristal is the bewitching mystery woman. Curtis Harrington directed from a Robert Bloch story, and the atmosphere is creepy and at times nightmarish. Harrington leave no doubt about where things are going by starting off with the brother's execution followed closely by a scene in the dance hall featuring a bunch of marathon dancers looking like the living dead. Within the strict limits of a 1970s ABC-type TV movie, Harrington even lays on a bit of true horror, in a scene when when Hamilton is trapped in a funeral home with a walking corpse intent on murder (Reggie Nalder of "Salem's Lot" fame). There's also a taut sequence in a graveyard when Hamilton and the dance hall owner dig up the deceased brother's grave. And the final showdown takes place in an old-fashioned slaughterhouse that takes on the feel of a hospital morgue. Nicely done, although no one in the star-studded cast is called upon to emote much.

Robert Bloch could handle any genre (I have a dozen of his short story collections, ranging from murder mysteries to supernatural horror to science fiction, and he handles each with aplomb); nor was he averse to "crossovers." THE DEAD DON'T DIE is an excellent example of a horrifying supernatural murder mystery. Seeing Reggie Nalder rise from his coffin was heart-stopping horror at its very best. As the sadistic "witchfinder general" in MARK OF THE DEVIL (not to mention his turn as one of the kidnappers in the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH), Nalder had clearly demonstrated that he was one of the screen's scariest stars (a "dark star," if you will). Though he would go on to play NOSFERATU in Tobe Hooper's decent televersion of Stephen King's 'SALEM'S LOT, he was scarier (in my opinion) here.

Scripted by Robert"Psycho"Bloch,the DDD is a very spooky movie indeed!George Hamilton is a man determined to find the TRUE killer of his brother's wife.He is drawn into a shadowy world where the dead won't stay dead!With creepy Reggie"Salem's Lot"Nalder as a scary dead/undead guy.Is everything George sees real or a nightmare?Ray Milland and Joan Blondel co-star.Very Spooky indeed.