The Resurrected (1992)

It’s a damn pity that Dan O’Bannon only directed two movies in his life, because the guy obviously had a unique style and knew what his audience wanted. His scripts, or just rewritings of other scripts, are among the best I’ve ever seen. But I was a bit worried when The Resurrected unfolded in front of my eyes. It felt sloppy, a bit chaotic – almost like O’Bannon didn’t care what he was doing. Could that be the truth? I was wrong as usual.

I don’t know if I’m corrected, but it seem like O’Bannon really wanted to surprise us, because the style of the movie becomes less sloppy and more coherent the further it goes. The odd performance by Chris Sarandon feels more and more thought-out, even if he still chews the scenery like no one before him. The private dick-storyline is uninspired from the beginning, but when the detective finds interested in the case – we’re also there with him.

The scene where the police break into Wards country-house, arresting him and the Chinese is almost documentary in feeling, and it’s from that moment that the movie shift gear and into something more darker and bizarre. The road to his house and to the underground lair is not only physical, it’s a trip into a very strange mind. Down there in the darkness O’Bannon also gives us a brilliant horror sequence, which Neil Marshall many, many years after used in his masterpiece The Decent: complete darkness.

Down in the catacombs, they suddenly don’t have any good light. They are forced to use matches, and at the same time absurdly bizarre monsters are stalking them from the sides and from below, from the holes made to keep them trapped. Before that O’Bannon made us, the audience, feel more and more claustrophobic – which in the end gives us one of the coolest horror sequences I’ve seen in years.

It’s not a gory film, but it’s filled with incredible make-up, mutated humans and scary monsters. Yes, there is a head-ripping, but O’Bannon stays away from the really graphic stuff. The Lions Gate DVD is in fullscreen, acceptable quality. But I would like to see this in a proper special edition release – why not blu-ray, now when the most obscure movies are released in this wonderful format!