Back from the Dead ** (1957, Peggie Castle, Arthur Franz, Marsha Hunt, Don Haggerty) – Classic Movie Review 7856

Director Charles Marquis Warren’s 1957 black and white horror movie Back from the Dead is a preposterous shocker, but given a big lift with a spirited performance by Peggie Castle as Mandy Hazelton Anthony, a honeymooner possessed and terrorised by her husband Dick Anthony (Arthur Franz)’s dead first wife who was mixed up in Maitre Renault (Otto Reichow)’s human-sacrificing Satanist sect.

Back from the Dead is a desperately over-heated and absurdly far-fetched yarn, even by the standards of such Satanist stories, but it is at least told commendably straight. However, as played and realised here it could raise lots of giggles. The screenplay is written by Catherine Turney, based on her novel The Other One. It has interesting horror themes – ghosts, devil cult, possession, human sacrifice – and arguably could have made a really good chiller, but that largely evades it here.

Also in the cast are Marsha Hunt as Mandy’s sister Kate, Don Haggerty, Marianne Stewart, Helen Wallace, James Bell, Evelyn Scott, Ned Glass, Jeane Wood and Jeanne Bates.

Back from the Dead is directed by Charles Marquis Warren, runs 78 minutes, is made by Emirau Productions and Regal Films, released by 20th Century Fox, Catherine Turney, is shot in black and white and Regalscope by Ernest Haller, is produced by Robert Stabler and is scored by Raoul Kraushaar.

The film was released on 12 August 1957 by 20th Century Fox in a double bill with The Unknown Terror (1957). It was shot during April 1957 for $125,000 at Laguna Beach, California.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7856

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