A bankrupt family are forced to move into an abandoned home in Los Angeles that they have inherited, only to find it occupied by a street gang when they arrive. The gang is ousted, but that doesn't put an end to the conflict. Complicating matters ... the house is haunted. While I admire the attempt to mix two genres here, neither genre is done particularly well. Still ... between the two, there's enough here to keep you moderately entertained. The actor and actress playing siblings in this film seem to forget these characters are related and play them as disturbingly flirty. The only actor you'll recognize here is Todd Bridges, which says volumes about the quality.
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rdoyle2910 September 2017
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lost-in-limbo3 September 2007The Cates family inherited an old mansion in Beverly Hills from their late uncle Tyler Walker, who was a well-known stage actor. When they get there, they find the rundown place to be overrun by some street punks who want nothing but trouble. After the Cates' teenagers make fools of those punks, they want to make their lives living hell. But also their uncle Tyler's spirit still hangs around the house, and doesn't seems to like the street punks' intrusion.
Roger Corman's Concorde churns out an uneven, but well intended low-rent b-horror film that stage an entertainingly weird mixture, where it has the story criss-crossing into campy fields of supernatural and revenge, and then finally combining the two. Everything about it is stereotypical with the usual shenanigans, but director Bert Dragin does a well enough job with his pacing and makes the twisty style unpredictable and always engaging. Limitations don't hold it back, as the competent make-up and special f/x generates some creative and effective moments. It slowly builds itself up, for a crackerjack closing half. Some demented scenes towards the end, are well worth the attention. Sure the technical side of the production might not be perfect (with the boom mike constantly becoming visible), but it was surefooted. Zoran Hochstatter's murky camera-work sometimes had a neat frenetic touch and dreary colour use, and David Bergeaud's simmering music score stewed up some spooky cues to add to the atmospheric urban setting of the grand looking mansion. The gimmicky screenplay by Bert Dragin and Robert McDonnell seems to work, but if you don't take it for what it is. The ludicrous, and somewhat illogical and loose nature might be hard to shake. Also its change in moods, from being broodingly dark to suddenly comically light might be an inconsistent turn off. The script feels one-note for most part, but weaves in some amusing flourishes of dark humour; jaw-dropping dialogues and an oddly unforeseeable twist here and there. The performances are well suited and come across fair. Tom Bresnahan and Jill Whitlow are likable as the siblings. Christopher Burgard chews it up as smarmy gang leader and Todd Bridges shows up in a little part.
Junky entertainment, but I wasn't expecting the modest quality that it dished up. Fans of low-budget horror should give it a try. -
Sometime around the depression, film star Tyler Walker is dancing in his home with a lifeless-seeming woman. Two policemen and a man in furs arrive to take his home. While in good shape, the house is largely empty due to Tyler selling most of the contents. The three men burst into the third-story room Tyler is in, finding that he has stuck a knife in the woman, who is just a mannequin, and Tyler has hung himself.
Years later, a couple with a son, daughter and cat named "Meow" are moving into a house they've inherited from their Uncle. The neighborhood is not so nice, and as they arrive there's a gang hanging out on their front lawn. The cops chase them off, but it's clear they'll be back and that one of them has an unhealthy attraction to the daughter. The cops call the house the "old Tyler place," which is a bit odd; usually people call a house by the *last* name of the owner. It's now in pretty bad shape, and they set about fixing it up. It had at some point over the years been used as a funeral home, and there is an empty casket in the basement, and a broken-down hearse.
The son and daughter have several run-ins with the gang, who are pretty set on hurting people for fun. One of the women in the gang isn't too bad, and two of the members are mainly interested in making out with each other, but the rest would be perfectly happy to even kill someone.
The son and daughter glimpse Tyler in mirrors in the house, but aren't sure what they saw. Tyler's noose snakes itself around the son, but later in the movie Tyler helps protect the two from the gang.
The gang stages a couple assaults on the house. One time, the siblings scare them off with a combination of booby traps and special effects. Another time, Tyler starts killing people, including using a dumbwaiter.
There are a couple false ends to the movie, and it is unclear what might happen next. Pretty good movie, though. -
Skutter-25 February 2007An average 80's horror vehicle, with the protagonists use of movie SFX gadgetry and makeup presumably its hook. There isn't a whole lot else that stands out about Twice Dead beyond this gimmick. The scenes that do involve the protagonists using movie props and makeup effects to play a trick on the gang that has been harassing them are kind of dumb. The extended sequence in the middle of the movie where brother and sister are able to fool an entire gang of scum into thinking they have each been attacked by ghosts and killed off one by one via supernatural means is ludicrous to say the least. Naturally the different members of the gang all act exactly as they are intended to, splitting off at the right times for each trick to work and the SFX used are perfectly convincing to the naked eye. Enough so that each different gang member is convinced they have seen something supernatural or one of their friends killed or dead- all from a bit of fake blood, monster props, gadgets and wires etc. Our protagonists also have access to quick acting, side effectless, movie chloroform. Yes, it's like something from an episode of Scooby-Doo but live action and even dumber for it.
As a whole the movie doesn't work and the story and tone are all over the place. There is a supernatural presence in the house where the family has moved into which seems to fluctuate between wanting to kill/spook the family and being on their side with no rhyme nor reason. A back-story is provided to explain the ghostly goings on but it just makes everything seem far more inconsistent. A link is developed later on in the movie between one of the gang members and the story of the house but it comes out of nowhere and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The gang that menaces the family throughout the film is so overt and public in their unlawful, and eventually murderous, behaviour that it is unbelievable that they haven't been arrested and makes the police's inability to help the Cates family when come to them for help for reasons of lack of evidence ludicrous indeed. This is one of those movies where the police have to be non-existent or unbelievably ineffectual for the plot to happen. The Cates family's behaviour is also nonsensical. The parents go off on a trip for a week or two leaving behind their two teenage children in the house alone whilst the family is being menaced by a violent gang. Instead of taking firmer and saner action, such as, I dunno, perhaps going to the police, these two set up an extremely elaborate prank which could only conceivably antagonise the group that wants to kill/rape/harm them even more. The tone of the movie is somewhat inconsistent also. At times the movie seems almost light hearted and goofy- the whole faked death by ghost sequence and at others times like a standard 80's slasher movie with over the top deaths, gratuitous nudity and at times serious- threatened rape and that sort of thing.
The dialogue, acting, gore etc, are all pretty mediocre. Only a couple of things stood out for me in Twice Dead. Jill Whitlow who plays the sister is certifiably gorgeous and made watching the film a less tedious experience than it would otherwise be. The other thing is how frequently the boom mike appears in shot, at least in the VHS version I watched. It appears so often it should have got billing (It has more personality than a lot of the other characters) and its appearance would make for a good basis for a drinking game, which could only make for a more enjoyable experience watching the movie. -
tvnutt25 August 2004You have to like a movie that has a good plot, this is one of them but very confusing. Not bad considering it was one of many 1980's, direct-to-video, shown late at night on Cinemax, horror flicks. It starts out in the early 1930's and actor Tyler Walker dancing with a woman who is stiff as a board, then three men(one in a fur coat) come by to get Tyler out of his home. THe next thing you see is Tyler stabbing his dance partner that turns out to be a mannequin, then he hangs himself. Fast Forward to the present where a family of four moves into the house. Turns out the fur-coat guy became the new owner of the home that fateful night, then turned it into a funeral parlor and it was then left to a relative and his family. The family is forced to move in after going bankrupt in Colorado. But upon arrival they're greeted by a gang who use the place as a hangout. One gang member "Crypt" seems to act very weird, talking in a slow, low voice and pre-occupied with the family daughter Robin. Of course, the usual ensues where the son Scott hears bumps in the night, then the family is tormented by the bikers, Robin and Scott get back at them, then the gang returns to get revenge. All comes to a very quick conclusion, with the help of Tyler's ghost, who can be seen in the mirror. The ghost helps kill the bikers except for one, who re-creates Tyler's fateful night back in the 30's with Robin. In the end, instead of Tyler's ghost in the mirror, it's Crypt since he hung himself too. By the movie's end we learn that Tyler and his dance partner/co-star Myrna were in love.They had a love child, Tyler left the home to Myrna but she ended up marrying the fur coat guy who is the family's great uncle. Myrna bares a striking resemblance to her niece, Robin.
Now for the confusing parts: 1) We see Tyler in the beginning, dancing with a real woman then in the next shot it's a mannequin. Are we getting a peek into his depravity or is it all part of a hoax on the filmmaker's to make us think we see a woman? If the later, then why? 2) Tyler tries to kill Scott by wrapping a noose around his neck. Then it's only when the biker's grab Robin that Tyler shakes the bed to wake Scott up. Why did Tyler go from scaring the brother to helping him? It's obviously because Robin reminds Tyler of his former love, but why go through that one scene of scaring the son, to me it was unnecessary to the plot. 3)The fur coat guy had the deed to the home in the beginning of the film, yet we learn Tyler left it to his love and she had died in 1987 in a sanitarium. Who left the house to the family? Fur coat guy or Myrna? Maybe she signed it over to her husband? 4)Tyler is seen stabbing a mannequin in the beginning and even appears in Robin's mirror looking like he wants to stab her, yet he never hurt her or his first love. Why the stabbing set up? Is it to show that he was so angry with her new marriage that he acted out his anger on a dummy but never hurt her? That's fine, but why show him in Robin's mirror with a knife if he wants to protect her? 5) Crypt, we learn is Tyler and Myrna's grandson, who relives his grandad's last night. We even see Crypt trying to stab Robin but Tyler retract's the knife. Did Tyler know this was his relative? Is that why Crypt was spared? and why was Crypt so intent on killing Robin when his grandfather didn't kill Myrna? AGain, if anything, Tyler was trying to protect Robin from any harm. Tyler was nuts, but not violent and it's obvious his love Myrna spent her last years in an institution. Maybe this made Crypt's dad twice as unstable? 6)Crypt is haunting the place at the end, what happened to Tyler and why is he letting Crypt try to attack the girl?(at the end Robin has a dream that Crypt tried to stab her and when she wakes up, she doesn't notice but there's a knife in her pillow). 7)Robin and Scott, at one point, lure the biker's in the house and knock them out one at a time then. After one his knocked out, Scott and Robin make it look like the gang member was murdered by the ghost so that the other gang members would run away. The next day, Robin and Scott drop the gang members off in different areas yet we never see how they got Crypt down and what they did with him.
Great movie if you can find it on ebay -
AaronCapenBanner31 August 2013Obscure haunted house film I had never heard of, until I saw it paired on DVD with another film I was interested in seeing("The Evil") Only way Shout Factory could get anyone to buy it I suppose! Film itself is shoddy, with a derivative, unappealing story about a vengeful ghost and a biker gang, and characters(except the lovely Jill Whitlow, wasted here) and is directed without distinction, and looks amateurish. Dull and uninteresting film is a complete bust, with a lousy and unoriginal ending.
Forget it, unless you just have to watch a film you're forced to buy, because you want the other feature! -
brokenlovesongs29 December 200480s horror is awesome, and any horror buff will tell you that, but when you're into this sort of thing, there are so many movies you run across that basically just suck. This movie is one of those. The concept is somewhat interesting. A brother and sister are home alone in a haunted house their family recently inherited, but the antagonist isn't the ghost of the performer who once lived in the home. The bad guys in this movie are a group of punks who find their enjoyment in terrorizing the brother and sister. This is definitely a workable plot, but this movie fails on many different levels. First of all, the acting is the sort of stuff you see on bad television; second, the brother and sister are much more carefree and upbeat than they should be in their particular situation, and the gang of punks seems so sadistic that it is practically impossible to think that the police would not have done anything to protect this family. It is a cool idea that the ghost who haunts the house helps the brother and sister kill off the gang of punks, but the kill scenes are terribly uninteresting, and these scenes do not warrant the level of creativity which they attempt to convey. The ending is for those with a very very low attention span. If you're a huge horror buff, like me, then watch this movie for its intriguing concept. Everybody else- stay away.
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poolandrews3 February 2006Twice Dead starts in the 1930's as stage actor Tyler Walker (Jonathan Chapin) is having a hard time, firstly he's skint & to add insult to injury his large Beverly Hills house is about to be taken away from him by Harry Cates Sr. (Bob McLean) the man who stole his one true love off him. It's all too much for poor Tyler & he is found dead having hanged himself... Jump to the late 80's & Harry Cates Jr. (Sam Melville) has inherited the house from his uncle, in an uncanny resemblance to past events Harry is also dead skint so decides to move his family into the house to ease their financial burden. Unfortunately when they turn up they find a local gang of punks have decided the front garden is theirs, after a stand off involving the police the gang moves on. Scott (Tom Bresnahan) & his sister Robin (Jill Whitlow) have an ugly encounter the gang at school & a feud begins to develop. The gang, lead by Silk (Christopher Burgard), lie in wait for Robin & one of them tries to rape her but Scott saves the day. Silk & the rest of the gang are really annoyed now & decide to have their revenge by breaking into the Cates house but a supernatural presence lurks that start to kill the intruders off one-by-one...
Co-written & directed by Bert L. Dragin I thought Twice Dead was a pretty decent film & much better than I had any right to expect. The script by Dragin & Robert McDonnell moves along at a reasonable pace & provides a fair amount of mindless entertainment. It mixes revenge film with a little bit of a ghost story & finally adds a touch of teenage slasher film to round things off, for the most part it works quite well as it's balanced & no one single theme overly dominates the running time. The character's aren't as clichéd as one may expect, apart from the stereotypical punk gang consisting of leather wearing, flick knife wielding, motorbike riding tough guys sporting bad attitudes wherever they go. There is a great twist about halfway through that I must admit I didn't see coming & succeeded in surprising me which isn't easy after you've seen as many of these low budget horror films as I have. No explanation is given as to why Tyler is a ghost, don't people commit suicide all the time? Do they all come back as vengeful spirits? I don't think so. The place is haunted by Tyler & thats it we have to accept it. The ending & various events throughout the film seems to indicate that history is repeating itself including something about a coffin in the basement but these plot threads are never really tied together that well & it comes across as a bit of an afterthought.
Made by the Roger Corman owned Concorde Pictures Twice Dead was director Dragin's second & to this point in time last film which seems a bit of a shame because he turns in a throughly decent & credible horror film, it has that late 80's look & feel while it also has a nice atmosphere to it as he films everything with minimal use of colour. There is even a nice little car chase in here as well. I could have done with a bit more blood & gore but what we get is OK, there are a few decapitated heads, a squashed head, death by motorcycle, a couple electrocuted while having sex & someone shooting themselves with a shotgun.
Now, one thing I have to mention is the boom mike. I have never seen a film where the boom mike is in shot as many times as it is in Twice Dead, I was thinking that it should get some sort of recognition in the credits as it has more screen time in the film than some of the character's! I counted at least six times when it was painfully visible, all in wide shots. Other than that Twice Dead is generally well made with decent production values. The acting was OK as well.
Twice Dead was a bit of a pleasant surprise as I didn't think I would but I liked it. If your a fan of these types of low budget horror films then you could do a hell of a lot worse than this, personally I think it's well worth checking out if you lay your hands on a copy. -
Mister-613 February 2002When your main exposure to a movie is at 3 a.m. on Cinemax, that's not a good sign.
So it is with "Twice Dead", the old "family-moves-into-a-haunted-house-and-battles-vicious-gang" plot with the only twist of having "Diff'rent Strokes" vet/parolee Bridges in the cast.
This hack job (get it? Yuk-yuk.) is so cheaply made as to have you believe the ghost in this house uses fishing line to levitate objects and that actors don't really need acting classes when there's the direct-to-video market. 'Nuff said.
Any good parts? The girl playing Tina (Spradling) was cute; too bad she plays her last scene electrocuted while astraddle her boyfriend (don't even go there).
Other than that, "Twice Dead" is dead on arrival; call the morgue.
One star, for Spradling's charms. Now playing in the discount bin at your local video store. -
jonahstewartvaughan6 April 2023Eighties Horror Retrospective #4
Twice Dead (1988)
(7/10):A Fun little Supernatural Horror Flick from the B-Movie Maestro Roger Corman who just so happens to be celebrating a birthday today.
Twice Dead is what I believe to be a supernatural slasher that was coasting on the success of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as it carries many of their elements.
We have the undead killer as well as dreams and reality being manipulated together in a similar fashion to how Freddy does.
It does feel like it takes a bit to get going as it focuses on the characters more and also building towards the epic conclusion.
It's silly fun that is filled with some solid low budget effects and some creative death scenes as well as a theme song that plays during the end credits.
There's something just more alluring about these kinds of movies, they're not good but they understand the basics of what they need to do to entertain, just be fun and I am happy to say that Twice Dead is indeed, Fun. -
exocrine23 August 2005This movie is so horrid it is hard to put into words.
It starts off okay, introduces the characters and sets up the situation. A family moves into a house that is haunted. Duran Duran has turned to the dark side and formed a biker gang.
The weirdest biker falls in love with the family's daughter (Jill Whitlow). I don't blame him.
After this, the movie starts to disintegrate. The couple leaves their children alone in the house for some reason.
The daughter goes out alone, at night, wearing lingerie and yelling "Meow" to attract her cat. The brother gets beaten up very badly trying to rescue her when the bikers get her. He is so badly beaten he can't stand and has trouble breathing, yet there doesn't appear to be a mark on his body.
After this the parents leave the kids alone.
The bikers invade and try to kill everything. At this point, the film gets the look and feel of a troma film.
After the killing, the surviving biker girl comes up and is now best friends with everyone. She provides the missing pieces of the plot. -
ttron200021 April 2014i remember when i saw this in the theater with a few of my friends. we were just kids so i pretty much liked this better then than i do today, but having just recently revisited it after a while, i still like it. it's no Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street, but Twice Dead is at least competent while some horror flicks of that time (and most of them today) fell flat. Bert Dragin's haunted house/ghost story may not hold together as a whole, but it gives us a solid setup, better performances than most from its genre, a strong visual mood, and a few very bloody, very satisfying death scenes, delivering everything a horror film needs. an extended prologue shows us 1930s actor Tyler Walker hanging himself in the attic of his home just as he's about to be evicted, but the main story takes place in 1988, with the Cates family, good people who've had their share of bad luck. there's mom and dad, older brother Scott (Tom Bresnahan) and his stunning sister, Robyn (Jill Whitlow), trying to get back on their feet after a bankruptcy. bad luck gets worse when they're forced to move into the Walker home, which they've acquired through an inheritance. they find the place to be a dump in a bad neighborhood with even worse company. right as they walk up to the front door, they have to shake off Silk (Christopher Burgard) and his gang of nasty punk sh!theels who've taken to squatting in the Walker house as a hangout. now add in the outstanding factor that Walker's ghost still haunts the grounds...Yeah, these poor bastards already have more than their share to worry about. as they attempt to settle in, Scott researches Walker's history, learning he was a tortured and broken soul. Robyn has a more difficult time adjusting, as she has becomes the object of desire for the switchblade-wielding Crip (Jonathan Chapin), a very mysterious and arguably the most disturbed of Silk's gang. after enduring fistfights, the slaughter of the family cat, and a creepy attempted rape, Scott and Robyn just want to be left alone and even turn to defensive measures (an altogether ludicrous sequence that would be stupid if it weren't so clever and fun). but Silk, all nasty and vengeful, stirs up his sh!t blizzard of harassment and terror, eventually turning things homicidal. that's where Walker's ghost comes into play. to say anymore would ruin the satisfying rampage in the film's last act when Silk briefly gains the upper hand. the body count is actually kept to a minimum, but needless to say, a few cringing deaths are in order and a few (one involving a motorcycle and another involving an electric blanket) definitely get points for creativity, while two other deaths are enough to make you jump. one death even involves the obligatory (and very gratuitous) horror flick nudity from the gorgeous Charlie Spradlin, the slinky sexpot of Silk's gang. the movie relies a lot on its two leads. Whitlow is so damn pretty, we lecherous scum won't be able to think about anything else and Bresnahan is good as her likable brother. Todd Bridges is okay as the only well-meaning character the Cates come across. It's Burgard and Chapin who take the show, the former eating all his scenes while the latter plays it down. all in all, this is a solid movie. there are some loose ends left hanging and some scenes are perfunctory while others just don't belong, but anyone expecting Citizen Kane with this is overshooting. i won't deny that i have some sentimentality on this one, but there are plenty of flicks i hated when i revisited them and this certainly wasn't that. this won't change the world for anyone, but it's entertaining, quick, and not a massive waste of time. worth a look.
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BA_Harrison28 December 2018Those who enjoy trashy '80s horror served with a hefty dollop of cheeze will no doubt get a kick from Twice Dead, which benefits from a very silly plot, competent direction and a decent pace, likeable protagonists, loathesome baddies, some sexy ladies, a handful of gory deaths and even a supporting role for Todd Bridges of Diff'rent Strokes fame. High art it ain't, but it sure is entertaining.
The film opens in the 1930s, as film star Tyler Walker hangs himself, having been jilted by his love Myrna. Half a century later, and the Cates family -- Harry and Sylvia, and their kids Scott and Robin -- inherit Walker's mansion, which is supposedly haunted by the actor's ghost. Before they can move in, the family must get rid of the street gang who have been using the building as their playground. In doing so, they incur the wrath of the hoodlums, one of whom develops an interest in Robin (Jill Whitlow).
When their parents leave them alone for a couple of weeks, Scott (Tom Bresnahan) and Robin devise an elaborate (and preposterous) plan to scare off the gang once and for all. Instead, they further anger the thugs, who return to seek revenge. Luckily for the Cates kids, Tyler's ghost is on hand to help deal with their attackers.
For much of the runtime, Twice Dead is less horror and more teen drama, focusing on the kids's run-ins with lowlife Silk (Christopher Burgard), his equally scuzzy pals, Crip (Jonathan Chapin), Stony (Shawn Player), Melvin (Travis McKenna), and un-named gang member (Raymond Cruz). Less objectionable are the gang's ladies, appealing blonde Candy (Joleen Lutz) and sexy brunette Tina (Charlie Spradling). These altercations are entertaining enough, but the final act, in which the gang members get their ghostly comeuppance, is where the most fun is to be had, the bloody death scenes including a head crushed by dumb waiter, death by possessed motorbike, electrocution during sex (the gorgeous Spradling providing the obligatory nudity), and a shotgun blast to the head.
A silly storyline, cartoonish baddies, Todd Bridges being run down, fun splatter, and Spradling's big boobs equals a good time in my book. 7/10 -
paul_haakonsen24 February 2021I had the chance to get to sit down to watch the 1988 movie "Twice Dead" for the very first time here in 2021, just 33 years after the movie was released. I hadn't heard about it prior to watching it, so I didn't know what I was in for here, aside from it being a late 1980s horror movie.
And boy was it a late 1980s horror movie in every meaning of that phrase. This movie was so stereotypical for a horror movie from the end of the 1980s in every way. But hey, if you enjoy the movies back then, then you should feel right at home when you sit down to watch "Twice Dead" from writers Bert L. Dragin and Robert McDonnell.
The storyline told in "Twice Dead" was pretty straight forward, sort of thing "Return of the Living Dead", except you exchange the zombies with a vengeful ghost, and replace the cemetery and factory with an old, run-down mansion. Then you have a delinquent band of miscreants hellbent on wrecking havoc upon the new youngsters that just moved into town.
Visually then the movie was definitely a late 1980s product, and the passing of time has not been overly kind to the effects in the movie. I am sure that back in 1988s then the effects here were adequate, but today, well, not so much.
The acting in "Twice Dead" was adequate.
My rating of this stereotypical late 1980s horror movie settles on a mediocre five out of ten stars, as the movie doesn't really bring anything to the horror genre that hadn't been done already back in the day, and more often than not, done better even. -
brandonsites19812 June 2002One of the better examples of the 80's on how to mix the horror and comedy genres successfully. This film is about a family moving into a house that is haunted by the ghost of a once great actor. A few neighborhood punks cause trouble though and eventually try to take the house over and kill the family, but the ghost helps them out and dispatches of the punks in violent and creative ways.
Very low budgeted, but fast paced thriller with only average to poor performances and ok direction. It is extremely entertaining though with some very good f/x and an especially exciting finale.
Rated R; Graphic Violence, Nudity, Sexual Situations, and Profanity. -
bombersflyup1 March 2021Twice Dead has a dull story and plot and is neither well executed or acted.
Beautiful Jill Whitlow walks around in tight clothes and a nightie most of the time, that's about the only positive. There's a ghost spirit and a gang, but it's pretty much a bad slasher film. The family dynamics are odd too, the siblings look nothing alike and act like lovers as well. -
Leofwine_draca15 November 2018TWICE DEAD is a middling late '80s horror comedy from one of Roger Corman's production companies. The story is slightly reminiscent of that of THE 'BURBS, with a family moving into a dilapidated house and finding something very strange in the neighbourhood. Not only are they immediately terrorised by a teenage gang with rape and murder in mind, but they discover that their old home is haunted by a long-deceased actor who resents their intrusion on his peace and quiet. What follows is a mixed bag that tends to do better with the thriller elements than it does the horror. There's a real sense of tension in the menace brought about by the gang, but the horror is rather half-hearted and not aided by some very dated FX work. Still, the acting's not too bad, and it's never slow.
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saint_brett15 September 2021Is this gonna be like the horror version of Tony Todd's Enemy Territory?
Movie starts off totally unappealing with either Marlon Brando, or Charlie Chaplin, (who's in color for a change,) dancing with some unhappy, terrified looking dame. Bugsy Malone shows up, let me guess, he's packing a Tommy Gun, right? Have no clue what the intro meant?
Movie then jumps to the eighties with the family truckster rolling on another vacation, minus Aunt Edna strapped to the roof.
Don't tell me they're going to move into the Karate Kid's apartment building?
The baddies are introduced and this is the hokiest ring-in Crips gang I've ever seen! It consists of Beach Boys; a Lostboy, a BDSM dominatrix, a Wanderer, and the overweight guy on the motorbike was in Steve Railsback's Ed Gein movie.
Meredith Salenger, remember her, and her cat become the desire of the crip gangs affection, so you know she will become a target later in the movie.
Love the razor blade earring the Halloween 5 punk sports. (He keeps flicking his blade like the baddie from The Wraith.) The baddies blast off in either a Trans-am, or Kit, but it won't be the last time we see the rebels without causes.
Why would a straight-laced cookie cutter family from Palm Springs move Downtown into a dilapitated used dump for no reason? Talk about a transitional change.
The son, Scott, has an unhealthy candlelit relationship with a well used 1930's blowup doll in the attic.
Remember the quarterback baddie from Class of 1984? Well, this pantywaste leader of the Crips in this movie is the anorexic version, even with the 2-tone colored hair.
Scott's in the basement with an unhealthy fetish for coffins now. (We need to talk about Scott.) Told ya, he's now back up in the attic with the out-of-date used blowup doll. The dad even says, "You're spending too much time up there." Scott's new fetish is bondage as he tries to affixiate himself with ship docking rope in this scene. Yeah, the thick stuff. This creepy Scott guy is now in his sisters room. He then gets bashed for meddling with his sister and even his own dad pulls the shotgun out and has had enough.
But conveniently, the parents are written out of the script, leaving Scott and Meredith to fend for themselves.
They probably thought the car chase scene with the hearse would be the bread winner for the movie. But it falls flat. I saw a 70's movie where some creep in a hearse overlap a blonde in a sports car which was farcical, too. Didn't a hearse go over a gravel pit in Nailgun Massacre as well? Then there's the movie The Hearse as well. (Didn't like cemeteries, right?)
Twice Dead has no pulse. Baddies aren't believable. Turkeee from Thankskilling makes a cameo appearance out of the gang leaders guts. Gang leader's name is Silk by the way. What, Sunsilk?
That motorbike kill scene just then is/was silly.
This might have worked in the eighties but in 2021 it's farcical and numb.
There's a dead mosquito on the roof of my room. It's been hanging there going on 2 years now. What's holding it up there, I wonder?
The guy from Alien Resurrection is in this. He gets electrocuted while sleeping with a lady who has a nice body don't mind me saying.
The baddie at the end, Sunsilk, plays charades with a shotgun and puts it in his mouth and mimicks a suicide reenactment. Whoopdedo.
And no, this wasn't anything like Enemy Territory.
Felt more like The Principal meets That Was Then, This Is Now, cross 3:15.
Well, not really. -
anxietyresister31 March 2006Why is it the actress you want to get her kit off in a film, never does? I mean, we have two really good looking women in this otherwise completely forgettable movie, but instead of seeing their assets we end up viewing.. the Playboy reject's silicone enhanced bosoms.I may not get what I want, but I get what I deserve.
Anyhoo, if you like endlessly recycled horror story lines you'll love this. Family on the verge of bankruptcy.. forced to move to an old dilapidated house.. a gang of hooligans start harassing them.. place turns out to be haunted.. the daughter resembles the ghost's true love.. family defends home when the thugs attack in force.. the spirit aids them by dispatching the gang members in various gory ways. Then it concludes with a COMPLETELY UNPREDICTABLE TWIST ENDING! You'll never guess..
The hooligans are by far the best thing about the film. Each one has got their own unique dress sense and personality traits which make them more interesting than the two bland leads. The violence is a lot more comical than scary half the time, and the blood is seemingly tomato sauce mixed up with red food dye (although in one case it is deliberately fake). Essentially, this isn't a brilliant film but with a no-name cast and limited financing, what do you expect? Worth a 4/10 just about.. -
I got this film as a double feature pack...the other film was called "The Evil" and like this one was a bit of a haunted house film. That one was a better film than this one, this is mainly due to the fact that this film did not really seem to know what kind of film it was trying to be. At times it seems to be playing out like an after school special on bullying. There are points it seems like a comedy and finally at the end of the piece the horror elements finally come into play. Sure there are a few things here and there before that, to suggest that something supernatural is going on, but all the really good stuff is confined to like a ten minute stretch at the end of the film. "The Evil" took some time to get started too, but nothing like this one. So it kind of disappointed, though I should have known it would not be anything great when Todd Bridges of Different Strokes fame is the only actor of note I recognize!
The story has a number of clichés one associates with a haunted house film. A family moves into a new home after some turmoil in their lives and said new house has some strange secrets. The new addition they add though is a street gang that constantly harasses the brother and sister of the family. Though they are a very odd brother sister pair as they are kind of Angelina Jolie and her brother creepy. Well, dad's solution is to threaten them with a shotgun which at one point keeps said gang at bay for a couple of months. The son's strategy while mother and father are gone is to poke and antagonize said gang to the point of angering them into a murderous frenzy. At one point you think the movie is finally getting its act together, but this is just the son being idiotic. Finally, near the end, there is some stuff going down at the haunted house!
So the film has some things going for it. I was kept wondering what the heck was going to happen. I kept wondering when something was going to happen and there were a couple of nice kills near the tail end of the film. Though this is the second film I have viewed that implies that if a woman is having sex, she will not notice that she is being electrocuted! The problem with the film to me, is the tone. It just needed to go all in and be a horror. It just does not have a good atmosphere and to many times I forgot I was watching a rated R horror and then someone would drop the F bomb and I am like, "Yeah, that's right, this is R."
So in the end, the film takes to long to get going, but for that brief ten minute span it does deliver some of the goods. Not as good though as the film that it was paired with, though that one had kind of the opposite problem in that it kind of ended weakly, while this one took forever and ended on a strong note. Well, strong is probably to positive a word, it ended a least in a horror movie fashion. Which again, is the film's weakest point, the overall tone which seems to do to many different things. -
helfeleather12 November 2002A preppy brother and sister very stupidly play a prank on a gang of heavies who have been making their life hell. Obviously they didn't take the gang seriously because of their Kajagoogoo hairdos. What they forgot was that this is the eighties, and even violent sadists had silly hair.
Naturally, the gang seek their revenge. The leader Silk wants to maim Preppy Boy, and the tough but attractive Crip wants to have his way with the sister. They're aided by a the obese Melvin, who's literally attached to his motorbike, and the stereotypical sex-crazed Latino.
The only person on the goody-goodies' side is the bloke who played Willis In Different Strokes. They don't have a chance -
kamikaze-430 April 2019I used to see this title on the shelves at video rental stores, and I would just pass on by with a "next time" thought. I finally saw this film on Amazon Prime, and I should have dismissed this as "next time" A deceased actor haunts a mansion he once owned, and is now the headquarters of a violent gang. As expected, a family starts to live in the house, and raises the ire of the gang, and all H-E- Double Toothpicks breaks loose with the gang harassing the family, and the ghost of the actor who to protects the family. Oh please. Pay close attention at the beginning, I had to replay the opening scenes, to get the twist at the end. SPOILER ALERT "Oh? Is that why the actor was wearing a mask? End of SPOILER ALERT" Nothing special. You've seen it before.
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Wizard-810 September 2011Even though this movie was made back in 1988, when there was still some room for B movies to play in theaters, I am really surprised this was deemed to be worthy of a theatrical release. I am equally surprised that more than 20 years later, this movie was deemed worthy of a release on DVD. Actually, the DVD pairs this with another haunted house movie, maybe because the DVD company thought no one would buy this movie on its own. It's a really dull affair, with scene after scene going by with not only no shocks, but few attempts at giving the audience some horror. Of the cast, Todd Bridges possibly gives the best performance, but his role has such little impact it could have been easily written out without harming the rest of the screenplay. The last fifteen minutes of the movie, when the ghost starts knocking off the punks that have taken over the house, does have a little interest, but it's too little, too late. Definitely not worth seeking out, unless you participated in the making of the movie and you happen to want to be embarrassed.
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HumanoidOfFlesh12 January 2010The Cates family from Colorado moves into broken down Beverly Hills mansion.They discover not only does a gang of malicious punks hang out there,but so does the angry spirit of a deceased actor Tyler Walker who is not pleased some rebellious teens have taken over his property."Twice Dead" begins with lovingly surreal sequence in which an actor from silent era is dancing with a mannequin.It mixes light-hearted humour with gore and supernatural stuff.All characters in "Twice Dead" are stereotypes and the dialogue is often hilarious.As with most films in this genre there are a lot of plot holes and lack of logic or consistency,but the death scenes are quite cool.Even motorcycle is used as a murder weapon.8 out of 10 for cheesy "Twice Dead".
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Woodyanders21 October 2010A family moves into a rundown mansion located in a dangerous urban neighborhood. Teenage son Scott (a solid and likable performance by Tom Bresnahan) and his spunky sister Robin (a winningly perky portrayal by the adorable Jill Whitlow of "Night of the Creeps" fame) are terrorized by a nasty gang of no-count street punks. Fortunately, the ghost of a famous Hollywood actor who hung himself in the house back in the 30's materializes so he can help Scott and Robin bump off said nasty punks. Director/co-writer Bert Dragin whips up a truly odd and campy curio that clumsily mixes elements of street gang juvenile delinquent exploitation movies and standard spooky haunted house fright fare with genuinely ludicrous, but still entertaining and often (unintentionally?) hilarious results: The street gang butchers the family cat and attempt to rape Robin, but our intrepid family decides to stick it out anyway, the parents leave the kids to fend for themselves when they go away to tend to family business, and Scott and Robin stage a fake gruesome bloodbath in an attempt to scare the hoodlums off (!). The whole thing concludes with an inevitable last reel massacre, with the gloriously absurd, yet grisly highlights being a fat jerk getting killed by his own motorcycle and a libidinous couple getting electrocuted while in the middle of doing just what you think. The cast struggle gamely with the patently inane material: Breznahan and Whitlow make for appealing leads, Sam Melville and Brooke Bundy do credible work as the parents, Christopher Burgard sneers it up with aplomb as mean gang leader Silk, Jonathan Chapin is suitably creepy as vicious gang member Crip, and Todd Bridges contributes an appealing turn as nice guy Pete. Busty brunette knockout Charlie Spradling pops her top and bares her beautifully bountiful breasts as horny moll Tina. Zoran Hockstatter's reasonably polished cinematography and David Bergaurd's generic ooga-booga shivery score both do the trick. A perfectly mindless diversion.