[HorrorScience] The Walking Dead (1936)

The walking dead It is a title well known to everyone thanks to the comics and the television series, but today we are not going to talk about those living dead, but about the 1936 film of the same name, starring one of the icons of classic horror cinema: Boris Karloff.

The story begins with a trial against a guy who has committed fraud, his lawyer tells him that he has nothing to fear since “his gang” has threatened all the judges, so that none of them dare to condemn one of them. However, Judge Shaw is a determined man and after thinking about it he does not allow himself to be intimidated by the thugs' threats, so he condemns the swindler and sends him to prison, which sows surprise among the gang of thugs.

After his act of justice, the judge becomes extremely popular, which makes it difficult for the thugs to kill him without creating a scandal and a subsequent investigation. However, one of the thugs has a better solution, using John Ellman (who was sentenced by Judge Shaw to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter) as a scapegoat.

The plan goes as agreed and John Ellman is sentenced to die in the electric chair, even though he insists on his innocence and assures that there are witnesses who can prove that he did not kill the judge. These two witnesses are present at the trial, but do not testify for fear of reprisals from the bullies. Days later they decide to do the right thing to prevent Ellman from dying as an innocent man, but his testimony does not arrive in time and the condemned man dies in the electric chair.

Having proven his innocence post-mortem, Dr. Beaumont (the head of both witnesses) decides to experiment on the body of the deceased to try to bring him back to life, which he succeeds... halfway. Ellman is resurrected but his mental faculties appear to be impaired, which makes him behave in a disturbing wayFurthermore, for some reason he now seems to have knowledge of everything that happened to him and is able to guess where the people responsible for his death are, an ability that he will use to take revenge.

The Walking Dead It is a short, intense and interesting film. The film deals with themes that are still relevant, such as corruption, justice manipulated by fear and the use of poor people as scapegoats, along with others more typical of this type of film, such as the return after death, revenge or scientific devotion that can reach madness, giving a fairly accurate sum for such a short film.

Although it is true that the focus of the film is the character played by Boris Karloff, who is very interesting as the “living dead” and gives us many sinister moments, such as his walks through the cemetery, a place where he considers he belongs, or the moments in which he discovers and pursues the people responsible for his death.

All of this makes me recommend this film, although I already warned that it is not a zombie film, even though the title today is related to the brain-eating undead.

Curiosities about the film:

• The scene in which Ellman is resurrected is a clear tribute to Frankenstein (1931) film in which Karloff played the monster.
• During filming Karloff had some voice problems, which reduced his character's dialogue (making Ellman once again remember the aforementioned Frankenstein's monster).
• Bill Hinzman, the first zombie to appear in night of the living dead (1968) relied on Karloff's posture and gait in this film to interpret his character's movements, thus leading to the standard zombie movement in later films.