CREATURE
OF THE WALKING DEAD (1964)
Directed by Frederic Corte/Jerry
Warren
Goodtimes VHS
Reviewed 01.03.04
Review by Joseph A. Ziemba
THE FILM
The official Jerry Warren method
for a big time hit: 1. Buy the rights
to a stylish and effectively shot
Mexican chiller (in this case, La
Marca Del Muerto). 2. Get some
friends together and shoot some
footage of them talking in your
living room. 3. Re-dub the Mexican
film with narration explaining the
action that’s taking place
in each scene. 4. Hack in your home
movie footage wherever it feels
good. Voila, you’re a real
pro!
It must have taken some real guts
to produce this motion picture with
complete sincerity. Seriously, something
must have seemed fishy to audiences
back in the day. The Warren-shot
scenes consist of two or three people
sitting around and talking about
what’s happening in the movie.
These scenes are abruptly inserted
into the original Mexican film two
or three times. The original film
has high production values and lots
of atmosphere. Jerry’s scenes
do not. Obvious stand-ins appear.
Narration takes the place of dialogue.
I’m falling asleep...
Anyway, a mad surgeon named Malthus
is conducting everlasting life experiments
on young women. He’s caught
and sentenced to hang. Fast forward
50 years or so, to the age of automobiles.
Malthus’ s grandson, John,
digs up his corpse. I’m not
sure why. John conducts his own
blood transfusion experiments and
brings ye old Malthus back to life.
Uh oh! This “creature of the
walking dead” (ha ha!) needs
more blood to keep living. Back
to the streets, Malthus!
The whole thing ends with a fist
fight and some stock footage of
a campfire super-imposed over the
monster, which definitely convinces
the audience that a laboratory is
burning.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
The picture on this old Goodtimes
tape was pretty dark. My VCR had
some tracking problems with it too.
The print was in decent shape, but
the sound was a bit muffled.
EXTRAS
No, thank goodness.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Mind numbing and incomprehensible.
I can’t imagine why you’d
ever want to sit through this movie.
It’s a complete mess. On the
other hand, La Marca Del Muerto
looks like it might be worth a look. |
Atmosphere park
Just shooting the breeze
Bored yet?
Old makeup = not scary
|
