one of my absolute favorites!

Not even bad in a good way

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

"They will give me the blood from their hearts as I destroy them!" That's the return from the grave statement that one of the two brothers which George Zucco plays almost immediately after his funeral. It wasn't a respectful send-off with a woman intruder invading the church to damn the congregation for having a church service for such an evil man. It turns out that the surviving brother was responsible for his own brother's death which he claims was necessary because indeed, his brother was evil. Now back for revenge, he's combination ghost and vampire, appearing and disappearing as well, and not giving his brother a moment of rest. The subject of the back from the dead brother's revenge is their own niece (Mary Carlisle) and in order to stop his brother from his unearthly revenge, the surviving brother utilizes his niece as the method to which he will destroy the undead for good. But Carlisle's fiancée (Nedrick Young) suspects that the surviving brother has his own reasons for keeping such a close eye on Carlisle and accuses him of setting the whole thing up!Zucco gives two completely different performances: one an obvious evil mad man, the other seemingly decent. What makes the tension in this so great is the fact that you don't know for sure if the "good" brother is indeed doing mankind a favor by taking the life of his own sibling. The dead Zucco has an Igor like hunchbacked assistant (Robert Strange) under his control (doesn't every madman?) who does his every bidding, while Fern Emmett plays a character obviously influenced by the screeching harpies played by Una O'Connor and the nosy neighbors played by Eily Malyon and Margaret Hamilton. Emmett, however, brings on an Evangelical theme into the film, first by invading the church during the opening scenes, and later in the near conclusion where she comes across the grave. A moody, atmospheric setting and cleverly slow pacing (which works in this case) sets this above many Z-grade shockers of the 1930's and 40's, although in the case of Zucco, he also scored with the same year's "The Black Raven" as well. When I first took an interest in the classic movies, I used to skip the ones for some reason I considered beneath me (anything which came from Monogram or PRC), but now that I've discovered them, I am fascinating even with the low budgets, cheap sets, sometimes dismal photography and theatrical acting that seems to have gone out with flame burning footlights and putting on melodramas in local barns. But in many cases, they are more entertaining than many of the classics we've come to cherish, and get to their point faster and with more action. Zucco always added an undercurrent of subtlety in his evil characters, and when the seemingly good ones did turn out to be evil, it was both a surprise and a prediction. "We were brothers, and there was a bond of hatred that was there between us for a lifetime", he states here, and you truly feel all the emotions that both men share. I am glad that modern day audiences have taken an interest in these and hopefully film preservation societies will put in the efforts into cleaning up these prints and retaining them for eternity. Even on the cheap, they are true pieces of art.

Lets face it,most of these smaller companies produced some very bad films. But with an interesting script,and a killer cast with Zucco and Frye manning their post admirably this one really surprises in it's quality. I didn't expect much here. But really this was a pleasant surprise. Also was surprised in the quality of the direction.Sam Newfield a director normally known for his westerns and BAD horror films actually pulls off a good bit of atmospherics here. Amazing to think it's the same man responsible for "I Accuse My Parents" Vampirism is a pretty whupped genre even by the time this film gets to it,but the twin brothers and the dark arts schtick give it some new life.

* More campire than vampire. * According to IMDb, Mary Carlisle was born in 1912 and no date of death is given. * Perhaps those vampire bites have affected her longevity. * How differently we would perceive the 1930s and 1940s if the movies had been filmed in color. The era seems impossibly distant. * This is possibly the most hypophotonic movie ever made. I can almost count the photons in some scenes. * If you're wondering why the catalog of disjointed thoughts, it's because IMDb doesn't allow reviews shorter than ten lines, for some logorrheic reason, so I'll keep on rambling, line after line, until IMDb's software lets me know that the "review" is long enough for submission on this site. * I've seen many reviews shorter than ten lines. Does anyone know how to avoid having to write reviews with a minimum of ten lines?

Clearly a film to play the lower half of a double bill, DEAD MEN WALK is a low-budget entry in the horror genre defeated by its stilted dialog and contrived situations. It's painfully dull and on the level of an Ed Wood film with amateurish acting from everyone except Zucco.Zucco plays a bad doctor who comes back as a vampire (with the assistance of DWIGHT FRYE) to take revenge on his good twin. As shown on TCM, the dialog is as murky as the photography and the print shown was badly in need of restoration.As good Dr. Clayton, Zucco declares that the latest death in the village "was not the cause of any known poison." He is soon visited by his "indestructible" brother who threatens to destroy him. He fires bullets at his evil brother to no avail. The poorly scripted story gets sillier as it goes on.Summing up: No better, but somewhat worse, than dozens of other low-budget horror flicks. This one, unfortunately, shows its "poverty row" origins too clearly. Too slow-paced for its own good despite its brief running time.