‘An experiment of terror! A result of horror!’
Creature of the Walking Dead is a 1965 horror film about a mad scientist who discovers the secret of eternal youth by draining blood from a young woman and is executed. His ancestor revives him and the terror continues…
The American movie was adapted by Jerry Warren (Face of the Screaming Werewolf; Curse of the Stone Hand; Teenage Zombies) using footage from a 1961 Mexican horror film La Marca del Muerto (“The Mark of Death”) directed by Fernando Cortés.
The screenplay for the 1961 Mexican original was by José María Fernández Unsáin (Madness from Terror; Museum of Horror; The Ship of Monsters).
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Jerry Warren’s direct contributions to the film were extensive editing, minimalist dubbing of the Mexican players in select scenes, voice-over narration of the majority of Mexican footage, and the filming and inclusion of several brief scenes and shots made by Warren in the United States with American actors.
Plot:
Doctor Malthus (Fernando Casanova), a 19th-century mad scientist, discovers the secret of eternal youth using transfusing the blood of young women into his subjects. He is hung for his crimes, but decades later, his grandson (who looks just like him) inherits his home and revives him from the dead. Malthus then resumes his rejuvenation activities using himself as the subject and enabled by his grandson, who procures healthy young victims they can bleed…
Reviews:
“Cortes’ customary pedestrian direction … fails to endow the banal story …”The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror
“How bad is it? It’s not good. Should you see it? If you’re into Mexican horror films, maybe […] It’s slow. The new footage doesn’t help, either.” Down Among the Z Movies
” …an over-familiar story can still work if the movie is able to build a proper sense of drama and tension, but Warren’s fiddling prevents this at every turn; his avoidance of dubbing and use of voice-over narration makes everything that happens seem distant and uninteresting, and the movie has no emotional impact at all. And as for the inserts, they’re just as dull and distracting as anything else he’s done in this regard.” Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings
“The Mexican film actually looks ok; its what Jerry does with it that turns into a classic of bad cinema […] I don’t know how good La Marco del Muerto (1961) may be but I do know that Creature of the Walking Dead (1965) is simply one of the worst films I have ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of bad movies!” Mark David Welsh
“I like Mexican horror movies of the period, but most of them are enjoyable for the way they put their cultural spin on the old horror-tropes of Universal Studios. Warren may be mainly responsible for how dull and incoherent Creature is, but I suspect the original aided and abetted the crime.” Naturalistic! Uncanny! Marvelous!
” …talky and schizophrenic, especially since the characters of the new footage are written into and out of the story rather at random and have nothing to do with the film’s ultimate resolution, but the Mexican source material is a good pulp product with some really nice shots at least, so if you’re into rather trashy vintage entertainment, this movie’s anything but a loss.” Search My Trash
“But, hell, it is boring. Long drawn-out scenes and a story that just seems to drag along (even though the film is relatively short at under 70 minutes). The voiceover fills the viewer with dread and there is little to recommend this cut. How the proper Mexican version would fair is another question.” Taliesin Meets the Vampires
“The scenes that were cut in by Jerry Warren were unnecessary and throwaway, not really adding anything to the film, though not really taking anything away either (except the scenes that were literally cut away). The only thing that saves this movie is what little brilliance from director Fernando Cortés’ original vision remains.” The Telltale Mind
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