I'm sure people are going to say "Greg, isn't it too easy to poke fun at old movies" and my answer will be "yep". Now, "Dead Men Walk" isn't bad per-say, just horribly uninteresting. It's obvious that this movie was attempting to cash in on Universal's popular vampire movies (they start with dra and end with cula) and just falls flat on its face. Dare you continue reading?
The movie starts out with a funeral for Elwin Clayton, the brother of the town doctor who was caught up with occult practices during his life. During the funeral a stereotypical crazy woman barges in saying the dead man was a monster and doesn't deserve a funeral in a church. Apparently Elwin had done something to her family in the past and for some reason this woman knows everything about him and his supernatural powers.
Soon after he is buried, Elwin's freakish henchman digs up his body and he comes back to life as a vampire. "Alive" again, his first business is to confront his brother who killed him because of his dark arts to tell him that he is going to make his life a living hell until he finally kills him. Elwin then proceeds to bite Dr. Clayton's niece, Gale, infecting her with some sort of vampire virus that slowly drains her of life. Since when can vampires do this? I thought you die as soon as they bite you but for some reason Elwin needs to come back every night to bite her again.
After a while the villagers begin to get suspicious of the fact that Gale is still sick and think that Dr. Clayton is killing her. It doesn't help Dr. Clayton's situation when one of the villagers sees his brother kill someone and mistakes it for the Doctor. This causes the villagers to form a drunken posse to go after the Doctor. At the same time, Dr. Clayton finds his brothers coffin in his old house and the two battle it out while the house burns down around them. The angry posse makes it to the burning house in time to see Dr. Clayton defeat his brother just before the fire envelopes them both.
What may be the worst part about this movie is the fact that the vampire's abilities are never shown off. In one point of the movie Elwin tells his brother that he has thousands of powers at his disposal. Sure would be nice to see what these powers are. Throughout the course of the movie the only two things Elwin does are walk through glass windows and turn off the lights. Wow, turning of the lights sure is a frightening demonic ability. Almost makes getting thrown off a cliff so you can be reborn as a vampire worth it. Hmm that's odd, I can do the same with a light switch, does that mean I'm a vampire?
No comments:
Post a Comment