Matrixston
Wow! Such a good movie.
TrueJoshNight
Truly Dreadful Film
Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
Uriah43
In order to dispose of an honest judge a small group of racketeers hire a local gunman to kill him and then set up a recently released convict named "John Ellman" (Boris Karloff) to take the fall. Sure enough, John Ellman is convicted and then sent to the electric chair due in large part because of two witnesses named "Jimmy" (Warren Hull) and his girlfriend "Nancy" (Marguerite Churchill) who wait too long to come forward. Fortunately, a physician named "Dr. Beaumont" (Edmund Gwenn) comes up with a novel idea to bring John Ellman back to life even though he has been dead for several hours. Although his plan succeeds there is something much different about John which nobody can quite seem to figure out. Now rather than reveal any more of the plot and risk spoiling this movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that for a short, relatively low-budget motion picture produced in 1936 this film turned out to be quite good all things considered. I especially liked the performances of Boris Karloff and to a lesser degree that of Marguerite Churchill along with the nifty (albeit now antique) cars used in this movie. Be that as it may, I enjoyed this film and rate it as above average.
Zoooma
Excellent little horror film directed by the amazingly talented Michael Curtiz, the same man who would later give up Casablanca amongst many other classic films.The story is a genre mashup of gangster and horror and at only about 1 hour 5 minutes, there isn't much time to lag. With such a skilled eye behind the camera, we are treated to a film that does not bore.Boris Karloff is the star and he does such a great job of bringing fright to the picture. For someone interested in the acting of Karloff or the films of Curtiz, this is a must see!7.0 / 10--A Kat Pirate Screener
Prichards12345
I suppose you could argue that many classic horror movies are pretty religious - Frankenstein is about a scientist who tampers with God's forbidden knowledge and pays the penalty - Dracula is awash in religious symbolism; The Exorcist is seen by many as a serious comment on Possession by Demons - Yet The Walking Dead also has this religious element...and then some! Boris Karloff plays John Elman, a former convict just out of prison for accidentally killing a man. Elman, a musician, is promptly stitched up by gangsters for the murder of the judge who sent him down, removing the judge's threat to their criminal activities. He walks the last mile to the electric chair proclaiming his innocence. However medical researcher Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwen) restores Karloff to life with the aid of the Lindburgh Heart, a real device from the 30s that Charles Linburgh co-designed in the hope it would lead to mechanical heart replacements.Elman has suffered a blood clot which has affected his memory, yet strangely he seems to know everything the guilty men did, and sets out to confront those responsible.And here is the crux - Karloff does not hunt these men down like some mad zombie, he merely appears to each and questions them as to their actions, and through their own fear they each die. The whole theme of the movie is the vengeance of a higher power using Elman as his agent.The movie is a watchable and atmospheric little thriller, with Karloff giving a strangely moving performance. Director Michael Curtiz, here making his third horror movie after Dr. X and Mystery Of The Wax Museum, delivers another good addition to these films. If you expect Karloff in monster mode you'll probably be disappointed, but The Walking Dead is interestingly different to the usual horror fare, and well worth a look.
classicsoncall
Reading most of the other viewer comments on this board, I was surprised that virtually no one had anything to say about the whitish 'L' shaped band in Boris Karloff's hair. It was reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart's skunk like streak in "The Return of Dr. X" where he portrayed a vampire of all things! In "The Walking Dead", Karloff is an ex-con brought back from the dead after being framed for a murder he didn't commit. Once revived, he exacts his revenge on the gang that set him up, using a psychic link from the beyond to track them down and lead them to their doom. For the premise of the story to work however, one has to get beyond the point where the murdered Judge Shaw was connected to the car John Ellman (Karloff) was driving. With no one around, why wouldn't Ellman simply have found a place to dump the body?The other thing that bothered me was why the conflicted young couple working for Dr. Beaumont waited until the evening of Ellman's scheduled execution to come clean with their story. I mean Jimmy (Warren Hull) was jumping right out of his skin at the trial to tell what he knew, and it didn't strike me convincingly that Nancy (Marguerite Churchill) would let an innocent man die. I know, then there wouldn't have been a story, but gee, that makes them the film's really, REALLY bad guys, doesn't it?I must say, I was unusually impressed by the size and scope of Dr. Beaumont's (Edmund Gwenn) laboratory. It looked like Warner Brothers might have been trying to outdo their Universal counterparts in the technical gadgetry department with all those beakers and scientific looking gizmos. They even did one better on the Frankenstein operating table with one that see-sawed during the back to life process - pretty clever. The other Frankenstein connection saw Karloff's character walking through the cemetery after his last two victims using that distinctive halting gait.Fans of Boris Karloff might not consider this one of his better performances, but it still carries some punch whenever the camera closes in on his gaunt expressionless face. After all, he was dead you know. Which is kind of interesting, as this is one of those rare films where the zombie brought back to life is actually killed again before it's all over. Better not to try and explain it, just tune in for a frightfully good show.
