The Resurrected starts as Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) contacts private investigator John March (John Terry, no not the England & Chelsea football player & captain!) in regard to her husband Charles Ward (Chris Sarandon) who suddenly moved out of their house & into an old abandoned building to continue his mysterious experiments, he has also recently been in trouble with the local police for importing the remains of human skeletons. Claire wants to know what he's up to & John accepts the case, his investigations lead him to believe that something sinister is going on under the house where he makes a shocking discovery as the truth is finally revealed...
Directed by Dan O'Bannon & based on the story 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' by H.P. Lovecraft which I admit I have not read so I cannot compare the two this is actually a bit of a hidden gem that I would imagine many may have overlooked or quite simply never heard of before which is a shame & advocates what a good advertising campaign can do. The script by Brent V. Friedman has a 40's noir detective thriller feel about it as John narrates large parts of the story & lets us, the viewer, into his private thoughts & feelings as he digs deeper & deeper & uncovers some scary stuff. Then there's the horror element of the plot which isn't overplayed & developed as a mystery which isn't fully revealed until the end, while this makes for an intriguing film that has a certain hook I felt The Resurrected spent maybe a little too long building things up & even though I wouldn't want the film to reveal itself too early on there might have been a few more clues & a bit more action. However I still thought The Resurrected was a nice surprise, the character's are very good as is the dialogue, it's a bit slow but it's definitely gripping, there's some really nice horror scenes here & in a world where every horror film seems to a clone of another it's nice to have a story driven & original genre flick that's just that bit different & because it was that bit different that's the reason it was almost certainly overlooked &/or forgotten about. A surprisingly neat little horror film that deserves better treatment that it got.
Director O'Bannon whose only other directorial credit is The Return of the Living Dead (1985) & probably better know for his big budget Hollywood screenplays for films such as Alien (1979) & Total Recall (1990) does a good job here on this, there is definitely some creepy imagery in this especially towards the end in the dark dank catacombs. Apparently O'Bannon has said on record that The Resurrected was ruined during the editing stage so maybe this version isn't quite what he had originally intended. Gore wise there isn't much on show, there's a melted corpse, there are some bones, a decapitation & various mutated creatures which look pretty gross. There are also some ambitious special effects in The Resurrected including a fairly impressive Jason and the Argonauts (1963) style stop motion skeleton & some dated looking optical light effects.
Technically the film is fine with good production values & some decent special effects, it's well made & was shot in Vancouver in Canada even though it is meant to be set in Providence which was where H.P. Lovecraft was born & raised. The acting is good throughout by all involved although Sarandon overacts a bit at the end.
The Resurrected is a neat horror mystery type film which I actually really rather liked, perhaps it spends a bit too much time on heavy exposition but it's pretty interesting & has decent entertainment value. Definitely well worth a watch for any horror fans out there, if you can even find a copy...
Directed by Dan O'Bannon & based on the story 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' by H.P. Lovecraft which I admit I have not read so I cannot compare the two this is actually a bit of a hidden gem that I would imagine many may have overlooked or quite simply never heard of before which is a shame & advocates what a good advertising campaign can do. The script by Brent V. Friedman has a 40's noir detective thriller feel about it as John narrates large parts of the story & lets us, the viewer, into his private thoughts & feelings as he digs deeper & deeper & uncovers some scary stuff. Then there's the horror element of the plot which isn't overplayed & developed as a mystery which isn't fully revealed until the end, while this makes for an intriguing film that has a certain hook I felt The Resurrected spent maybe a little too long building things up & even though I wouldn't want the film to reveal itself too early on there might have been a few more clues & a bit more action. However I still thought The Resurrected was a nice surprise, the character's are very good as is the dialogue, it's a bit slow but it's definitely gripping, there's some really nice horror scenes here & in a world where every horror film seems to a clone of another it's nice to have a story driven & original genre flick that's just that bit different & because it was that bit different that's the reason it was almost certainly overlooked &/or forgotten about. A surprisingly neat little horror film that deserves better treatment that it got.
Director O'Bannon whose only other directorial credit is The Return of the Living Dead (1985) & probably better know for his big budget Hollywood screenplays for films such as Alien (1979) & Total Recall (1990) does a good job here on this, there is definitely some creepy imagery in this especially towards the end in the dark dank catacombs. Apparently O'Bannon has said on record that The Resurrected was ruined during the editing stage so maybe this version isn't quite what he had originally intended. Gore wise there isn't much on show, there's a melted corpse, there are some bones, a decapitation & various mutated creatures which look pretty gross. There are also some ambitious special effects in The Resurrected including a fairly impressive Jason and the Argonauts (1963) style stop motion skeleton & some dated looking optical light effects.
Technically the film is fine with good production values & some decent special effects, it's well made & was shot in Vancouver in Canada even though it is meant to be set in Providence which was where H.P. Lovecraft was born & raised. The acting is good throughout by all involved although Sarandon overacts a bit at the end.
The Resurrected is a neat horror mystery type film which I actually really rather liked, perhaps it spends a bit too much time on heavy exposition but it's pretty interesting & has decent entertainment value. Definitely well worth a watch for any horror fans out there, if you can even find a copy...