Too many fans seem to be blown away

Strong and Moving!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

"The Resurrected" is a fine little re-animator style gore fest from the early nineties. It takes awhile for the aforementioned fest to begin, but when it does, every viewer who ever read/wrote a letter to "Fangoria" magazine should be pleased. So should fans of the fine (both as in looks and as in talent) actor Chris Sarandon, who has delivered in every film I've seen him in. (Yes, I'm a Fright Night freak).It begins with an escape from an asylum, where we are - perhaps I spoke too hastily in my first paragraph - treated to the sight of a partially-eaten body. The escapee, we learn, is Charles Dexter Ward (Sarandon). We then go back in time, to when Ward's dish of a wife (Jane Sibbett, looking her Hitchock-blonde best and delivering a good performance as well), goes to a private investigator (John Terry, passable; Sarandon is the real highlight)and expresses her concern over Ward, who has just moved out of their house after she has refused to allow him to continue his mysterious "reaserch" in their home. She has not spoken to him in some time, and their first wedding anniversary is approaching.Anyhow, there follows a bizarre tale that boils down to: Ward has become obsessed with an anscestor of his, who, in addition to being physically identical to Ward, had discovered a way to re-animate dead people. We travel back to this anscestor's time, where we are treated to the sight of a failed re-animating "experiment" floating in a lake and subsequently burned alive (an act of mercy, believe me) on a woodpile.Ward, as it turns out, has discovered and duplicated the research and brought his identical forebear back to life. But, it seems that this particular method of re-animation comes with a catch; the "subject" must have fresh (preferably human) meat to survive. Poor Ward, it turns out, has been murdered by his own re-animated anscestor, who, being identical and all, has assumed his identity after some time masquerading in a fake beard as the mysterious "Dr. Ash".The final confrontation between the investigator, who has discovered the truth, and the false-Ward is the true highlight of the film, largely due to Sarandon's performance. (Yes, I'm a Fright-Night freak, as I said, but you don't have to be to be impressed by his performance here). He chews the scenery with his (fake) bad teeth and is genuinely menacing, especially in the moment when he tears himself out of the straight-jacket.I won't give away the ending, partly because, I must confess, I'm still somewhat confused by it. (I've only seen the film once as of this writing). But I am now planning a Halloween double-feature of this film and the inestimable Fright Night; what a perfect night to spend with Chris! I would recommend this to horror/gore buffs of any stripe.Cheers.

I'm not entirely sure if H.P. Lovecraft would have liked this decade very much. I once read in a biography article that he was a terribly depressed human being and incredibly difficult (impossible, even) to please, so it's probably a good thing he never got to see any of the cinematic efforts that were based on his twisted work. The 90's film-adaptations that were inspired by Lovecraft vary from abominable ("Chtulu Mansion") over poor ("Lurking Fear") and mediocre ("Necronomicon", "Bleeders") to decent-at-best ("Castle Freak" and "The Resurrected"), but none of them resulted in genuine genre masterpieces like they did in the 80's, with "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond". With "The Resurrected", director Dan O'Bannon delivered a stylishly made and overall very atmospheric chiller, but the wholesome sadly is a little overlong and it sometimes lacks the obligatory panache to become an immortal favorite among horror fanatics. The plot neatly follows the structure of H.P's tale "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", the same story Roger Corman used for "The Haunted Palace", and especially the transfer to the present day setting is adequately handled. The movie opens with a truly promising and sinister sequence inside a mental asylum, where panic and fear broke loose following the supposed escape of a dangerous patient named Charles Dexter Ward. Cut back to a period of time earlier, when a certain Mrs. Ward seeks contact with private detective John Marsh because her husbands behaves suspiciously and distant. The detective slowly discovers that Charles is involved in macabre occult experiments, together with the mysterious Doctor Ash, and that he may even has found a method to cheat death. The horribly shocking discoveries continue when Marsh and Mrs. Ward explore Charles' hideout place and laboratories. Although benefiting from a moody & absorbing atmosphere, the first half of "The Resurrected" is too talkative and yet thrifty when it comes to sharing useful information with the viewers. Slow tension building is good, preferably even, but it honestly takes too long before the first gruesome scene makes you jump up from your seat. The second half is much more eventful but occasionally suffers from unnecessary padding footage, like during the heroes' journey through the dark catacombs. The grand finale makes up for a lot, though, as it's inventive and pretty much impossible to predict even if you have seen the other movie-adaptations of the same Lovecraft story. There's a lot less gore and special effect than you'd expect, but the monstrous creations of FX-artist Todd Masters are engaging and effectively repulsive. Set pieces, lighting, camera-work and editing are all formidable, just the music is a little too obviously stolen from Christopher Young's theme for "Hellraiser". The acting performances are all fairly wooden, with the exception of the always-reliable Chris Sarandon whose portrayal of Charles Dexter Ward is stellar and genuinely menacing. Even though Dan O'Bannon only directed two movies, I'm convinced many horror fans (myself included) would be very interested in him making a comeback.

I am usually a big fan of most horror movies Dan O bannon is assoicated with { from Dead and Buried to Return of the Living Dead } and I had high expectations for this film. First off, this film is almost 2 hours long but the material contained within the film does not support that long of a time frame. In fact, it takes 56 minutes for the 1st real exciting visual scene to happen. The actor that portrays the investigator is quite amateurish while the lead that plays the female part is awful { take not of the beginning when she is in the detectives office and they are talking. Her performance is pathetic and she plays with her hands for 5 minutes} . The dialog leaves little to be desired and there's nothing inventive or unique about the camera-work. The soundtrack is very uneventful. I have no idea how people can rate movies like this a " 10" . In many ways this is a poor mans Reanimator. If you must see this film, just fast forward the 1st 55 minutes and start from there and even then you may feel very disastified.

Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon) has become a little strange lately. Some would say he is not quite himself. A private detective (John Terry) and Ward's wife (Jane Sibbett) try to get to the bottom of things as murders of a very grisly nature begin to occur in Ward's neighborhood.After watching a few of Stuart Gordon's adaptations of Lovecraft tales, I grew very accustomed to his professional and serious approach. Now we have a Lovecraft classic told by Dan O'Bannon, who (as a director) only offered us one other thing: "Return of the Living Dead". That film is one of the best in horror history, but clearly stamps O'Bannon as a comedic director in my mind. (Yes, he was involved in "Dark Star", "Total Recall", "Alien" and even "Star Wars"... but not as a director.)The filming techniques in "The Resurrected" mirror those from "Return" and you might recognize the same sorts of shots, particularly the opening reveal of the mansion. Also, the music, which is incredible, seems incongruous at times. It is a very epic music, and when the first body is shown we get what I found to be a very silly chord. (How Richard Band became involved in this project is beyond me, but probably a great story.) The whole idea of the story told from the point of view of a private eye is also really silly if you think about it, but the original story did not leave many options.The gore is here. Not as much as I would like (though I hear there is an unedited version floating around), but the victims of the "animal attacks" have certainly seen better days and a flashback to the old days features a very nice creature that could have been Belial's brother.The actors are great, the story well done... I would recommend this movie to others. Now, it is not the best Lovecraft movie (Stuart Gordon still holds the distinction of best adapter) and not the best O'Bannon film. And there were scenes I think could have been better and other parts I think could have been cropped to improve the pace. But you will not curse my children after seeing it, I promise...