Wednesday Horror: Return of the Living Dead

Film: Return of the Living Dead
Format: On Demand on big ol’ television.

One of the most enduring ideas concerning movie zombies is that they love to eat brains. That trope didn’t come from Romero’s films, where the dead started mindless and eventually started to evolve and ate anything they could from their victims. No, the common idea that zombies love brains comes from 1985’s Return of the Living Dead, a movie where the zombies talk, can use tools and think, and eat brains because, as we’re told by one highly decayed corpse, they are the only thing that deal with the pain of being dead and feeling one’s body rot.

We start in a medical supply warehouse where Freddy (Thom Mathews) is being shown the ropes by Frank (James Karen). After a quick tour of the warehouse and a look at the variety of skeletons, dogs divided in half for anatomy study, and other things, Frank decides to impress his new coworker by bringing up Night of the Living Dead. According to Frank, it was based on a real outbreak, and the zombies (and yes, he actually says the word) were accidentally shipped to this Louisville warehouse by the army and are in the basement.

Wednesday Horror: The Haunted Palace; The Resurrected

Film: The Haunted Palace; The Resurrected
Format: MGM Channel on rockin’ flatscreen; Internet video on laptop.

You can say what you want about Roger Corman, but the man does have a couple of particular talents. First, judging by the people who made films for him, Corman was a great judge of directorial talent. Second, he was capable of doing a great deal with a limited budget. Third, the man found a tremendous niche with films specifically based on the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. With The Haunted Palace, Corman stepped a little outside of that comfort zone, making a film that is clearly based on Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” but he made this essentially as one of his Poe films, so that strange connection of making something watchable carried through.

The film starts a few years before the American Revolution in Arkham, MA. Women in the town are mysteriously drawn to the rebuilt palace of Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price). The townspeople have decided that Curwen is a warlock and storm the palace. They drag him out and burn him at the stake, although they are convinced not to attack his mistress, Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant). Before he dies, Curwen pronounces a curse on the town, saying that those who are burning him, their children, and their children’s children will suffer.