- Directed by Curtis Harrington
- Written by Robert Bloch
- Starring
- George Hamilton
- Ray Milland
- Linda Cristal
- Reggie Nalder
Who would have thought it possible? This zombie movie (TV-movie, actually), made in 1974, does the inconceivable: It completely avoids referencing Night of the Living Dead. Will wonders never cease?
“Just a little off the top.”
Mind you, the script was by Robert “Psycho” Bloch, a genre workhorse who had been around since roughly the Pleistocene Age; a guy like that isn’t gonna be swayed by cinematic fads. No, this tale places zombies back in their original voodoo context, and takes place in an era that Bloch was probably much more comfortable with, the 1930s.
1934, to be precise. Sailor Don Drake (George Hamilton, who apparently has been stealing from Dick Clark’s secret well) has gotten back into Chicago in time to discover that, in his absence, his brother Ralph (Jerry Douglas) has been arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife Frances. In fact, Drake gets into town just in time to have a last farewell with Ralph before he takes that long walk. Ralph protests his innocence, saying that he and Frances had napped and when he woke up, she was dead; and he swears Drake to clear his name.
At this point, we get one of the most memorable scenes in the movie: Ralph is taken to the barber’s chair, where they shave that certain bald spot on top to accomodate Ol’ Sparky, and then he’s led on his final walk to the chair, with the preacher, as usual, reading the Twenty-Third Psalm. (Okay, is there anyone who would find that comforting? Heck, I’m a believer, and I still think hearing that psalm intoned on my way to my final demise would have the opposite effect to that intended, a sadistically ironic counterpoint that seems more a countdown to doom. But maybe that’s just me.) Then Ralph is capped, blindfolded, and noseplugged, and Drake has the dubious honor of watching the lights dim as the current is diverted to… well, you know.
No, these are not the zombies.
After planting Ralph, Drake heads into the city to try and pick up some leads. Ralph and Frances had been earning their keep at one of those forgotten events of the early 20th century, a dance marathon, run by seedy promoter Moss (Ray Milland). The story Moss tells is that, on a fifteen-minute break on day eighteen of a twenty-day marathon, Ralph and Frances had retired to a private room; and when Moss’s right-hand man Frankie Specht had gone to retrieve them, he had found Ralph asleep and Frances deceased. Moss’s comments on the psychotic effects of extreme sleep deprivation got me to thinking: Were juries back then so hard-assed that they would pin a first-degree murder charge (I assume it was first degree, as he got the death sentence) on a person who would admittedly have been a victim of psychosis — and with no witnesses, to boot? And to top it off, Frankie Specht disappeared before the trial, which means that the only witness even to the after-the-fact murder scene wasn’t present. This got a conviction?
Anyway. When Drake gets back to the hotel restaurant for dinner, he’s approached by a mysterious woman in black who’s been following him since the trial. She, Vera LaValle (Linda Cristal), tries to warn him to leave well enough alone and get out of town before dot dot dot. But Drake’s attention kind of wanders, because he looks out the window and sees — Ralph! Standing on the street corner, staring at him, his eyes dead and a livid line across his forehead from the electric cap.
Bet you didn’t realize Zoolander was a remake.
Drake runs out and gives chase, coming to a closed antique shop. He barges his way in past the shopkeeper and encounters Mr. Perdido the owner (Reggie Nalder, and ooh what a subtle character name), who declares there’s no one else hiding in the back and tries to fist-fight with Drake. Alas, a well-timed blow from Drake sends Perdido reeling back to strike his head and expire. As Drake expresses amazement and horror at having accidentally committed murder, the shopkeeper discovers that old radios make excellent blunt weapons.
But Drake doesn’t wake up in the slammer; instead, he’s in Vera’s apartment, where she dragged him after she “persuaded” the shopkeeper to let him go (with the help of one of those little handguns that look so classy stuck in a garter). She warns him that the mysterious “Varrick” is setting him up — so naturally, Drake grabs her gun and forced her to lead him to this Varrick — their final destination being a funeral home. She takes off once they get there, so Drake enters alone to find that there’s no Varrick there — but poor Mr. Perdido is. He enters the deserted chapel to view the body, and to his horror, a whisper issues from Perdido’s dead mouth — a whisper that introduces itself as Varrick. And then, Perdido’s body stiffly stands and plods down the aisle after Drake, who empties the entire revolver into the walking corpse before breaking through the locked door and away. (This, too, is a nifty image, assisted by the fact that thin-and-pale Reggie Nalder doesn’t look too healthy at the best of times, much less with zombie makeup on.)
Like a good citizen, Drake goes to the police (both to turn himself in as a murderer and to report that the victim won’t stay dead), but the evidence against him. The funeral home reports no Perdido in state, and no sign of Drake that evening; and on returning to the antique shop, Drake and the lieutenant discover Perdido, apparently hale and hearty as he ever was. (Upon seeing the man who a few hours earlier had taken six bullets without any damage to his zombified form, Drake does the eminently sensible thing: He turns tail and runs from the store like the devil himself was on his tail.)
Dude, you don’t look so hot. No, really.
Having nowhere else to turn, Drake returns to Moss, who puts him up in his own apartment as Moss tries to use some of his shadier contacts to find out about Varrick, Perdido, and LaValle. Drake is supposed to get himself some shut-eye; but after a graveyard nightmare, he wakes up to find Vera in the apartment. Varrick had sent her to kill Drake, a command she doesn’t intend to obey. Because, see, Varrick is the zombie master. And Ralph is now a zombie. And so, by the way, is Vera herself — as demonstrated by the scar encircling her once-decapitated head.
Especially in a movie like this, which follows the structure of a mystery, I’d feel bad if I told you everything, but really, Varrick’s final identity isn’t hard to guess early on. Drake spends the rest of the movie disinterring relatives, teaming up with the re-appeared Frankie Specht, uncovering Varrick’s fiendish plot (to take over the world — what other kind of fiendish plot is there?), and finding out that someone has designed walk-in freezer doors which counterintuitively lock from the inside.
It’s a nifty little movie, evocative of the period (when was the last time you saw a movie which portrayed the zombie-like contestants in a dance marathon?) and creepy in an enjoyable low-key way — an enjoyment that’s only slightly diminished by realizing that the plot makes almost no sense. An example which doesn’t give away any spoilers: If Perdido is a zombie who will soon be returned to life anyway, why was he lying in a coffin in a funeral home that night? And what was the deal with Varrick allowing Drake to see and pursue Zombie Ralph in the first place?
I’m not saying he’s the bad guy, I’m just saying: Would YOU trust this man?
Despite that, this is a movie that’s been out of print for far too long. It may not be the “OCCULT CLASSIC OF ALL TIME” as hyperbolically proclaimed on the box, but it certainly deserves better treatment than to be represented by dwindling supplies of used Goodtimes Video tapes on eBay (recorded in LP, no less).
But I guess if Night of the Creeps can be inexplicably out of print too, I’m looking for justice in all the wrong places.
A Notable Quotable:
“What you’re talking about is a primitive superstition.”
“I’m talking about a primitive reality.”- Drake and Vera
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 5
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- dream sequences: 1
- ominous thunderstorms: 1
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
- Reggie Nalder (Perdido) played “Shras” on the original episode “Journey to Babel”
- William O’Connell (the priest) coincidentally played “Thelev” in the same episode
