******UNDEAD SPOILERS!******

In January of 1975, an entertaining little thriller called “The Dead Don’t Die” aired on the ABC network, which was written by Robert Bloch (author of the 1959 novel “Psycho,” from which Hitchcock’s 1960 film was based) and directed by Curtis Harrington (“Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”). Not to be confused with a more recent 2019 same-name horror/comedy with Adam Driver, this TV-movie starred the eternally-tan George Hamilton as Don Drake; a sailor on leave investigating the circumstances that led to the murder of his sister-in-law, after his brother Ralph (Jerry Douglas) was unjustly executed for the crime. The investigation leads Drake to uncover a bizarre plot involving zombies, voodoo, and a quest for power wrapped in a lower-budget, yet stylish throwback to 1930s film-noirs.

I debated reviewing this obscure little TV-movie, since I wasn’t sure anyone under the age of 50 would even remember it, but I decided to go ahead and do a deep dive on this flick I first saw at the tender age of eight, and that I haven’t seen for at least 20 years or so. I also remembered I’d dubbed my old VHS tape onto a DVD (remember DVD-recorders?), and it was still in my collection. It’s not that the movie was forgettable, I just couldn’t remember if I had a copy. I also found it’s available to stream from YouTube (albeit in the same poor quality).

So, let’s open the casket to take another look at…

“The Dead Don’t Die” (1975)

The movie opens on a stormy night in 1934 at an Illinois state penitentiary; the night that Ralph Drake (Jerry Douglas) is scheduled to be executed by the electric chair (“Old Sparky”) for the murder of his wife, Francis; a murder Ralph doesn’t remember, and refuses to believe he could commit.

Ralph’s younger brother, Don Drake (George Hamilton) is granted extended leave from the navy after receiving word of Francis’ murder and Ralph’s scheduled execution. With only thirty minutes before his execution, Ralph is still bitter that Don wasn’t there for his trial, though the two reconcile after Don vows to find the person responsible for Francis’ death. Ralph is then executed, as his brother watches helplessly from the observation gallery.

Note: Despite solid performances from George Hamilton (“Zorro the Gay Blade,” “The Godfather Part III”) and Jerry Douglas (who is an uncanny likeness for actor Michael Ironisde), the two actors bear no familial resemblance at all. Hamilton’s extreme tan is downright distracting too, given that his character has been cooped up on a ship at sea for most of the year, and is currently residing in a cold, foggy city.

Note: The execution scene is surprisingly hard-hitting for a mid-1970s TV movie, with Ralph getting shaved and strapped in for his date with “Old Sparky.” The lights dim, and we see closeups of Ralph’s hand convulsing as the deadly voltage courses through his body. The violence in this film follows the classic ‘less is more’ ideal. Director Curtis Harrington created many of the horror films I grew up watching on TV as a kid, including 1966’s “Queen of Blood” (a precursor to 1979’s “ALIEN”) and “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?” (1971); a creepy retelling of “Hansel and Gretel” by way of “Psycho.” Speaking of “Psycho,” Robert Bloch would go on to write three episodes of the original Star Trek; the creepy android-thriller “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” the Halloween-inspired episode “Catspaw,” and “Wolf in the Fold”; a 23rd century twist on ‘Jack the Ripper.’

Playing private investigator for his late brother, Don checks into a hotel, where he is joined during dinner by a mysterious woman named Vera LaValle (Linda Cristal), who attended Ralph’s funeral. She cryptically pleads with Don to leave town as soon as possible, and to avoid crossing a powerful man named “Varrick.”

Note: Argentine-born actress Linda Cristal (1931-2020) was a Golden Globe winner for 1958’s “The Perfect Furlough,” and would star in several classic westerns, including “Comanche” (1956) and “The Alamo” (1960).

Backtracking to where Francis’ body was discovered, Don heads to a marathon dance club run by a man named Jim Moss (Oscar-winner Ray Milland), who rakes in admission fees as collapsing couples nearly dance themselves to death on his watch (dancing marathons were a huge fad in the 1920s-1930s, as couples hoofed themselves into exhaustion for cash and prizes). Moss freely offers Don information about the night Francis’ body was discovered, since Ralph claimed to have blacked out. Moss offers temporary insanity as his only possible defense for Ralph’s (presumed) actions.

Note: In two of Robert Bloch’s other works, “Psycho” and Star Trek TOS’ “Wolf in the Wolf,” both Norman Bates and chief engineer, Mr. Scott (respectively) claimed to ‘black out’ during acts of murder. In Norman’s case, the blackouts happened as he channeled his mother’s persona. In Scotty’s case, it was while he was possessed by an elusive energy-being called ‘Redjac’; which was also responsible for Earth’s infamous “Jack the Ripper” killings in late 19th century London.

As Don prepares to exit the dance club, he sees his late brother Ralph standing outside. Rushing into the foggy street, he sees Ralph enter a closed antiques store. Don pounds on the door until he is let in by an understandably grumpy employee named Levinia (Joan Blondell), who insists that no one else set foot in the store.

After checking the back entrance, Don then meets the store’s owner; a gaunt, heavily-accented older man named Perdido (Reggie Nalder), who tries to shove the sailor-investigator out of his store before Don knocks the spry older man unconscious in self-defense. Levinia leans over Perdido’s lifeless body and exclaims, “He’s dead!” As a dumbfounded Don reels from disbelief, Levinia knocks him unconscious with a particularly hefty antique.

Note: Joan Blondell (1906-1979) was a popular film actress and former sex symbol during the 1930s, before finding a second career later in life, with roles in such popular films as the 1950s-set musical fantasy “Grease” (1978) and Franco Zeffirelli’s 1979 remake of “The Champ.” I remember her best from her role in The Twilight Zone episode “What’s in the Box?” (1964) where she played a nagging housewife who’s murdered by her abusive, cheating husband.

Don awakens in an unfamiliar room, situated above the dance hall. As he stirs, Don sees Vera standing in the room with him. She has orders from Varrick to kill Don, but she refuses. Using her attraction to him, Don presses, wondering what hold this mysterious Varrick has on her. Vera then removes the bejeweled choker around her neck, revealing a thick scar; she’s a member of Varrick’s undead cult, and she died under a guillotine, many years ago. Vera also reveals a scar burned onto her palm in the shape of a snake; a branding for zombies. She says Varrick uses voodoo dolls and mind control to keep his zombies in line, and that she’s risking everything by confessing. Reluctantly, she agrees to take Don to meet Varrick.

Note: It’s downright criminal that no decent copies of this film exist except in my memory. It’s not on Blu-Ray, let alone DVD, and the VHS tape I bought back in the early 2000s was inexplicably recorded in Extended Play mode, meaning the quality was crummy. This does a tremendous disservice to the movie’s stylish cinematography, courtesy of James Crabe (1931-1989), who would go on to work on such high profile Oscar-winners/contenders as “Rocky” (1976), “The China Syndrome” (1979) and “The Karate Kid” (1984). Sadly, the talented and openly-gay Crabe would die of AIDS-related complications in 1989, when treatments for the disease were nowhere near as advanced as they are today, meaning an AIDS diagnosis was nearly always a death sentence.

Sharing a cab, Vera hastily drops Don off at a local funeral parlor, where she promises Don will meet Varrick. At the parlor’s reception desk, a clerk tells Don no one named “Varrick” works there, nor is there any deceased by that name. Going through a list of departed, Don recognizes the name Perdido as the man he killed, who is now lying in state. Don nervously enters the main parlor, just as the door is slammed shut and locked behind him. He approaches Perdido’s corpse, and its eyes and mouth open. A whispered voice streams from its mouth claiming to be Varrick, who’s using Perdido–and other recent dead–as his ‘children’ to do his bidding. The corpse of Perdido then grabs Don by the throat. Pulling free from its rigor mortis hand, Don is pursued across the room by the creepy cadaver. Breaking the door down, Don barely manages to escape. Believing he’s found proof of Varrick’s zombies, Don enlists the help of Lt. Reardon (Ralph Meeker) from the Chicago PD, and they return to find everything in order, and no one named Perdido listed in the mortuary’s registry. Realizing a conspiracy is underfoot, a put-upon Don returns to his hotel.

Note: Austrian-born character actor Reggie Nalder (1907-1991), with his cadaverous appearance, has long been a staple of horror and sci-fi. Most famously, he played the Nosferatu-like vampire, ‘Kurt Barlow,’ in the 1979 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot.” He’s also made appearances as an Andorian ambassador in Star Trek (“Journey to Babel”) and as an alien casino worker in Battlestar Galactica’s three-hour 1978 pilot “Saga of the Star World” (which also featured costar Ray Milland as “Sire Uri”). Nalder’s appearance in this film gave me nightmares as a child, much as he does for Don later on in the film. Varrick’s use of Perdido’s corpse to speak is similar to a scene writer Bloch also used in his Star Trek episode “Catspaw,” where the corpse of crewman Jackson opened its mouth and channeled the voice of the alien ‘Korob’ to warn Captain Kirk.

Before Don returns to his hotel, an enigmatic stranger with a hint of a West Indies accent approaches the front desk looking for him. The stranger is an associate of Varrick’s named Frankie Specht (James McEachin). When asked if he has a message for Don, Specht simply replies “no,” and leaves.

Note: Actor James McEachin is a longtime character actor, with appearances in sci-fi movies such as “2010: The Year We Make Contact” (1984), and episodes of TV’s “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (“The Plot to Kill a City, Part 2”), “The Six Million Dollar Man,” and “The Bionic Woman.” The American-born actor, aged 94 at the time of this writing, is a Korean War veteran, as well.

A determined Don stops by the antiques store later that evening with Lt. Reardon, where they’re met by Levinia and a not-dead Mr. Perdido–who greets them wearing sunglasses. After Don and Lt. Reardon leave, Perdido removes his sunglasses, revealing dark circles around his undead eyes. Back at his room, Don is met once again by Vera, who says she can no longer help him, since Varrick has voodoo dolls of his “children” that can be destroyed upon betrayal. As if on cue, Vera’s body begins to billow smoke, and her burning eyes darken as her wax voodoo doll is subjected to a blowtorch by the unseen Varrick. As Vera spontaneously combusts, Don braves the smoke and flames to reenter the room, only to find her waxen hand melting on the floor.

Note: Vera’s horrific yet non-graphic immolation is another effective scene in this brief 74 minute TV-movie. Broadcast standards of the time forced creators to emphasize suspense and implicit horror over blood and guts. Graphic violence is par for the course these days, particularly on streaming shows, which enjoy greater creative freedom, but which lack the suspense and mood of those older movies.

His nerves frayed by Vera’s immolation, his nightmares of Perdido, and the sighting of his ‘dead’ brother, Don goes to see Moss; his last ally, who is in the middle of auditioning a would-be dancer (Yvette Vickers) for his marathons. Moss offers to help by giving Don a ride to the only place where he can get answers regarding his brother–the cemetery.

Note: Former Playboy model and actress Yvette Vickers (1928-2011) had a brief cameo as ‘Miss Adrian,’ the would-be marathon dancer. The actress’s greatest fame came from her supporting role as the ‘other woman’ in 1958’s camp sci-fi classic, “Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman.” However, it was her death in 2011 that brought Vickers back into headlines. Living a solitary existence in her later years, the actress’s long-dead, mummified corpse (having been dead at least a year or more) was found at her home during a wellness check. Despite the body’s decomposed state, it was believed Vickers died from congestive heart failure. A tragic ending to her story.

At the cemetery, Don and Moss begin digging into Ralph’s grave. Don is surprised to find the earth is loose, as if dug into recently. Giving Don more room to work in the confined space, Moss exits the grave just as Don opens his brother’s casket, only to find it empty. Turning to Moss, Don discovers his partner has fled. Jumping out from his brother’s grave, Don is attacked by Varrick’s zombies, before he’s rescued by the mysterious Frankie Specht, who offers him a ride in his car.

Note: The legendary horror filmmaker George Romero (1940-2017) revolutionized cinematic zombies with 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead” by making them mindless, shambling corpses who feed on living flesh. That revolution caught on quickly, with movies such as “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things” (1972) and countless other imitators, continuing well into the 21st century with an ongoing slew of “The Walking Dead” TV spinoffs. Bucking that trend, “The Dead Don’t Die” went more retrograde with its zombies; adopting the Haitian voodoo stereotypes seen in movies such as “White Zombie” (1932). Though arguably perceived as racist today, the movie’s possessed, voodoo-zombies are more in keeping with its 1930s film-noir stylings. Romero’s grotesque, cannibalistic zombies simply wouldn’t work.

During the car ride, the West Indies-born Frankie tells Don that Jim Moss is the alias of the zombie/voodoo master, Varrick. Frankie also confesses that he was forced to kill Ralph’s wife Francis while under Varrick’s powerful mind control. With no one else in his corner, Don reluctantly accepts Frankie’s offer of help. Frankie then tells Don about a meat storage warehouse that Varrick uses for his own nefarious purposes. Arriving at the warehouse, Frankie offers to stand guard outside while Don checks out the cold storage areas. After Don enters the warehouse, Frankie is killed when the zombie Perdido runs him down with a car.

Note: Frankie’s death is arguably penance for killing Francis, though he truly sucks as a security guard.

Finding a convenient flashlight on a desk (of course), Don investigates the cold storage section of the warehouse, where he finds mortuary cabinets along the walls containing Varrick’s undead ‘children.’ Varrick says they’re merely ‘sleeping,’ as he walks in on Don. Unfazed by Don’s intrusion, Varrick then reveals his plan for using Haitian voodoo to control his army of the undead for personal power. Voodoo master Varrick reveals he is unable to directly kill anyone himself, so he uses zombies to do his dirty work. That army now includes Don’s late sister-in-law Francis and his brother, Ralph…

Note: Let it be said that even a writer as talented as the late great Robert Bloch (1917-1944) couldn’t resist using that hoary cliché of the villain confessing his evil scheme to the hero.

The zombified Ralph then enters, wearing his burial suit. Varrick commands Ralph to kill his brother, but Don shows zombie-Ralph the corpse of Francis. Appealing to his brother’s latent humanity, Don tells Ralph that Varrick arranged to have Francis killed by Frankie Specht. Slowly, Ralph’s humanity emerges, and he turns on Varrick, impaling his former master on a meat hook, next to a few sides of beef. With Varrick dead, no one remains to control Ralph’s corpse, and he collapses; finding peace, at least.

The police, led by Lt. Reardon, arrive on the scene, where they are met by the warehouse’s elderly nightwatchman, who was curiously absent during the zombie kerfuffle, though he takes point with Reardon on the investigation. As Don watches, Reardon and the guard open the cold storage wall cabinets, only to find rows of eggs. The meat locker where Ralph impaled Varrick has only hanging sides of beef now. Calling it a night, Reardon chalks it up to poor old Don Drake being emotionally overwrought following the death of his brother. As Reardon offers him a ride back to his hotel, Don looks to the night watchman from the back of the police car. The guard is standing outside and waving goodbye; his palm bearing the signature snake-scar of the undead. Realizing Varrick’s legacy continues, a stupefied Don mutters to himself, “It’s true…the dead don’t die.”

The End.

Note: Even in a movie with reanimated corpses, I found the super-quick cleanup of the warehouse in the short time it took for the police to arrive utterly implausible. Moving all of those dead bodies and replacing them with eggs without anyone noticing would’ve take much longer than a few minutes. And the nightwatchman with the tattooed hand raises more questions than it answers; was the nightwatchman one of the undead who somehow remained animated after Varrick’s death, or was he another voodoo master? We may never know…

Summing It Up

I distinctly remember seeing “The Dead Don’t Die” the night of its broadcast at the tender age of eight, when I was still reeling from a loss in my family just weeks before (yes, I was raised by wolves). It was perhaps for that reason more than any other that the film had such a profound impact in my psyche. It truly gave me nightmares. Watching the film today with the dual buffers of time and age, it plays very differently, of course, though it’s still an eerie little zombie-voodoo story by way of Raymond Chandler. Stylish, modestly-budgeted direction from Curtis Harrington yields a few surprisingly effective moments, and Reggie Nalder’s ‘Perdido’ still scares the piss out of me…

Curtis Harrington directed a few other memorable horror films from my youth (“Queen of Blood,” “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”), and he marshals an interesting mix of feature film and TV-stars, including George Hamilton (“Where the Boys Are,” “The Godfather Part III”), Ray Milland (“Lost Weekend,” “Battlestar Galactica”) and character actress Joan Blondell (“Public Enemy,” “Grease”). The late Oscar-winner Milland projects cool menace with his Sydney Greenstreet-style delivery. Shooting largely on the Universal Studios backlot, the movie is definitely TV-grade, but that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable enough to take a chance on, especially with a meager 74-minute runtime. If it weren’t for a few shadowy, nightmare-fuel images here and there, Robert Bloch’s script for “The Dead Don’t Die” would make for a nifty, old-style radio play.

For those with patience enough to enjoy a 50-year old and often creaky made-for-TV zombie-noir thriller? Sprinkle a bit of cheese on that popcorn, and enjoy.

Where to Watch

I have my own copy that I burned from a VHS tape to a DVD back in 2005 or so, but you don’t have to go through all that, since the movie is widely available to watch for free on multiple channels from YouTube. Enjoy!