Dead Men Walk (1943)

Rating: **
Review Date: 1/1/15
Cast: George Zucco

A low budget "Dracula" knock-off featuring George Zucco in dual roles. The film opens with the funeral of Elwyn Clayton (George Zucco), an evil man and a practitioner of the dark arts. But is he really dead? His brother, Dr. Lloyd Clayton (also George Zucco), is an upstanding citizen in the community, but he holds a dark secret regarding Elwyn's death, and Elwyn seeks revenge from beyond the grave. It turns out that Elwyn is actually a vampire, and every night he visits Lloyd's pretty young niece to drain a little more of her blood. As more people start dying from random vampire attacks, the town decides it's the doctor's fault and they form a lynch mob to bring him to justice. The two brothers finally resolve their differences by going up in flames together.

It's a low budget affair and not particularly interesting. Zucco is charming and does an adequate job with the material, but the other actors aren't very good. The only real difference between Zucco's dual roles is that Lloyd has more hair and wears glasses.