paulclaassen HP Lovecraft's obsession with the Dead continues with this film. Another unforgettable performance by Chris Sarandon, but the film itself feels like something we've seen before, like a 'Re-Animator' back story, as if an entire film was made based on a paragraph. It does feel a bit drawn out towards the end and the film ultimately feels overlong. Having said that, though, the film has some wonderful moments and the effects are good for its time. Quite honestly, I'd rather watch 'Re-Animator' a dozen times more than to give this a second viewing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, it was just too similar to 'Re-Animator', only the latter was that much better.

RoyStead This movie is exceedingly faithful to Lovecraft's original story, and I loved the original story ("The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"). So why did I dislike the film so much? Essentially, because it's NOT an "adaptation" of the source material: It's a straight line-by-line reconstruction of it, with no concessions of any note made to the adaptation process, to the differences in story telling technique which are required for film, as opposed to the written word.In short, it's uncinematic and what works on the printed page does not - most definitely does NOT - work on the flickering screen unmodified. The end result is tedious in the extreme.

Paul Andrews The Resurrected starts as Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) contacts private investigator John March (John Terry, no not the England & Chelsea football player & captain!) in regard to her husband Charles Ward (Chris Sarandon) who suddenly moved out of their house & into an old abandoned building to continue his mysterious experiments, he has also recently been in trouble with the local police for importing the remains of human skeletons. Claire wants to know what he's up to & John accepts the case, his investigations lead him to believe that something sinister is going on under the house where he makes a shocking discovery as the truth is finally revealed...Directed by Dan O'Bannon & based on the story 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' by H.P. Lovecraft which I admit I have not read so I cannot compare the two this is actually a bit of a hidden gem that I would imagine many may have overlooked or quite simply never heard of before which is a shame & advocates what a good advertising campaign can do. The script by Brent V. Friedman has a 40's noir detective thriller feel about it as John narrates large parts of the story & lets us, the viewer, into his private thoughts & feelings as he digs deeper & deeper & uncovers some scary stuff. Then there's the horror element of the plot which isn't overplayed & developed as a mystery which isn't fully revealed until the end, while this makes for an intriguing film that has a certain hook I felt The Resurrected spent maybe a little too long building things up & even though I wouldn't want the film to reveal itself too early on there might have been a few more clues & a bit more action. However I still thought The Resurrected was a nice surprise, the character's are very good as is the dialogue, it's a bit slow but it's definitely gripping, there's some really nice horror scenes here & in a world where every horror film seems to a clone of another it's nice to have a story driven & original genre flick that's just that bit different & because it was that bit different that's the reason it was almost certainly overlooked &/or forgotten about. A surprisingly neat little horror film that deserves better treatment that it got.Director O'Bannon whose only other directorial credit is The Return of the Living Dead (1985) & probably better know for his big budget Hollywood screenplays for films such as Alien (1979) & Total Recall (1990) does a good job here on this, there is definitely some creepy imagery in this especially towards the end in the dark dank catacombs. Apparently O'Bannon has said on record that The Resurrected was ruined during the editing stage so maybe this version isn't quite what he had originally intended. Gore wise there isn't much on show, there's a melted corpse, there are some bones, a decapitation & various mutated creatures which look pretty gross. There are also some ambitious special effects in The Resurrected including a fairly impressive Jason and the Argonauts (1963) style stop motion skeleton & some dated looking optical light effects.Technically the film is fine with good production values & some decent special effects, it's well made & was shot in Vancouver in Canada even though it is meant to be set in Providence which was where H.P. Lovecraft was born & raised. The acting is good throughout by all involved although Sarandon overacts a bit at the end.The Resurrected is a neat horror mystery type film which I actually really rather liked, perhaps it spends a bit too much time on heavy exposition but it's pretty interesting & has decent entertainment value. Definitely well worth a watch for any horror fans out there, if you can even find a copy...

Coventry 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.