"Dead Men Walk" would not qualify as a great film in any universe, but with a bigger budget it might have been worth seeing more than once. George Zucco plays twin brothers, one a straight arrow and the other a black sheep who tinkers with the occult; the straight arrow kills his evil twin, who is resurrected as a vampire with the help of his bug-eyed servant (Dwight Frye). Predictable horror shenanigans ensue. If you've seen the dour, dignified Zucco in any of his more lavishly-budgeted pictures, like "Dr. Renault's Secret" or "The Mad Ghoul", then you know that he was perfectly capable of carrying a film...but "Dead Men Walk" refuses to be carried. It's shabby-looking, packed with the kind of tight shots favored by Poverty Row studios and which made their films look as if they'd been lensed in a single corner of someone's tiny house. The dialogue is conspicuously purple, even for a horror flick, and occasionally almost schizophrenic: in one breath a character solemnly reflects on "vampires lying in unholy repose, their teeth stained with the blood of the living", but drawls, "Shucks! I'm scared as the dickens!" in the next. (I'm not quoting directly from the film, but I'm not far off, either.) The acting is competent but utterly lacks conviction; even Dwight Frye is phoning it in. These folks were making a stinker and they knew it.
Review of Dead Men Walk
