Dead Men Walk (1943)

Directed by Sam Newfield [Other horror films: The Mad Monster (1942), The Monster Maker (1944), The Flying Serpent (1946), Gigantis: The Fire Monster (1959)]

I have little to say about this one, because ultimately, Dead Men Walk is extraordinarily forgettable.

A big problem, though, isn’t with the film itself, but the commonly-available copy. It’s audio tends to be muffled and garbled, making it pretty hard at times to make out some dialogue. I got a lot of it, but there are times when whole lines go over my head, and that certainly can’t be blamed on the movie itself.

What can be blamed, though, is the generic and uninspired story. Despite being just over an hour, it’s also pretty dull. At best, you have Dwight Frye (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Vampire Bat) and George Zucco (The Mad Monster, The Mad Ghoul, Fog Island, and The Flying Serpent), but neither one makes up for a lucklaster plot, which Dead Men Walk definitely boasts.

I’ve thought for a long while that the 1940’s was probably the weakest decade in terms of horror output, and this goes a long way to showcase my point. This movie easily could have been made ten years earlier and not feel an ounce out of place, and it still would have been uninspired, which is a shame.

Dead Men Walk isn’t a movie I’d recommend watching once, and I’ve seen it twice, which is probably the most I’ll ever see it. It’s just pointless and meandering, even for the time, making this just a disappointing film, and only for those who deeply love lower-level 40’s films.

4/10