A stylish and expert hybrid between gangster drama and horror (of the mad scientist and zombie variety) made by a studio and director who had cut their teeth on the former but who proved equally adept at the latter on occasion; as for star Boris Karloff, he fared better here than in BLACK Friday (1940), a not dissimilar concoction.
Karloff, as always, is remarkable and very moving as the hapless 'monster': his characterization draws on a few of his previous roles - THE CRIMINAL CODE (1931), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), THE RAVEN (1935) - but also looks forward to Karloff's "Mad Doctor" cycle which began with THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936). Edmund Gwenn is also effective in one of his earlier roles as the doctor who brings Karloff back to life after he is wrongly executed: obsessed by an urge to learn what goes on after death, he drives Karloff on but the latter's only concern is to get even with the corrupt gang which set him up (including Ricardo Cortez's shady lawyer, Barton MacLane as one of his associates and Joe Sawyer as a hit-man, the real murderer).
The film's best moments feature Karloff's zombie rampage which, incongruous as that may seem, have a touch of poetry about them - not least because of the way that every member of the gang dies by his own hand through accident rather than Karloff's! At first, I was wary of the fact that a barely conscious Karloff could travel and somehow reach the gang's home addresses (of which he could have had no prior knowledge) in order to exact his revenge, but it is later suggested that Karloff became all-knowing in the hereafter - which is, after all, what every religion foresees for its believers.
THE WALKING DEAD is a solid little film and I hope that someday Warners releases a Box Set of their lesser-known horror catalogue, to include THE MAD GENIUS (1931), DOCTOR X (1932), THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932), MAD LOVE (1935), MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935), THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936), THE RETURN OF DR. X (1939) and THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)...
Karloff, as always, is remarkable and very moving as the hapless 'monster': his characterization draws on a few of his previous roles - THE CRIMINAL CODE (1931), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), THE RAVEN (1935) - but also looks forward to Karloff's "Mad Doctor" cycle which began with THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936). Edmund Gwenn is also effective in one of his earlier roles as the doctor who brings Karloff back to life after he is wrongly executed: obsessed by an urge to learn what goes on after death, he drives Karloff on but the latter's only concern is to get even with the corrupt gang which set him up (including Ricardo Cortez's shady lawyer, Barton MacLane as one of his associates and Joe Sawyer as a hit-man, the real murderer).
The film's best moments feature Karloff's zombie rampage which, incongruous as that may seem, have a touch of poetry about them - not least because of the way that every member of the gang dies by his own hand through accident rather than Karloff's! At first, I was wary of the fact that a barely conscious Karloff could travel and somehow reach the gang's home addresses (of which he could have had no prior knowledge) in order to exact his revenge, but it is later suggested that Karloff became all-knowing in the hereafter - which is, after all, what every religion foresees for its believers.
THE WALKING DEAD is a solid little film and I hope that someday Warners releases a Box Set of their lesser-known horror catalogue, to include THE MAD GENIUS (1931), DOCTOR X (1932), THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932), MAD LOVE (1935), MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935), THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936), THE RETURN OF DR. X (1939) and THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)...