Where the Dead Are

*** out of ****

Now here is a creepy, inventive little zombie flick, courtesy of Rod Serling. That it plays like an episode of The Twilight Zone shouldn’t be a surprise: It was a finished script found by Serling’s wife after he died, and it was eventually filmed as a short film for an anthology appropriately titled The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics. In reviewing Where the Dead Are as a standalone film, I reveal that I only caught the last half of the program, but I didn’t mind—it was a effective little film that stands well on its own, and I think Serling, that odd little man with a macabre sense of humor, would have been happy that it was found and eventually made.

The story concerns a certain Dr. Ramsey (Patrick Bergin), a university professor in the late nineteenth century, who, while performing a routine operation, inadvertently discovers that his patient’s skull had previously been smashed beyond repair. All logic would suggest that the patient couldn’t have lived through the trauma. How, then, was he able to survive for so long, especially without any sign of brain damage? The patient dies in the operation and Ramsey never gets an answer to the puzzling mystery. He then mulls over the question obsessively, and he finally decides to investigate the puzzle by visiting where the patient lived: A small island village right off the coast. When Ramsey visits, he finds that the people who live on the island seem normal enough, though a little eccentric—the most eccentric of all being Dr. Wheaton (Jack Palance), the local physician. Ramsey does some detective work, digs up some dirt, and realizes that Wheaton indeed leads a secret life as a scientist who dabbles with tissue regeneration. Hmmmm…

I’ve already revealed that this is a zombie flick, though a joyfully original one. I’ve probably given too much away by disclosing this, but then, The Twilight Zone was never really about the plot twists, which were always inevitable, but about the care that the series took in drawing their characters and making their environment essentially the real world, not a fantasy one. This approach raises the stakes and makes our defenses work in overtime, because we are so effectively convinced that what we’re watching is fantasy reacting in familiar places and people who we can easily see as ourselves. It also adds a rich layer of social commentary into the mix, as it forces us to consider and deal directly with how people really would react in such circumstances. Serling in particular was always obsessed with adding rich social subtexts into his supernatural pieces, and the approach immortalized his work on the level of great sci-fi writers Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov, and horror film director George A. Romero.

Where the Dead Are, like the best of The Twilight Zone, effectively makes its world our own and thus creates effective chills and social commentary out of its otherwise predictable twists. Director Robert Markowitz wisely directs in a straightforward manner and allows Serling’s campy and lyrical script do most of the work, though Markowitz does demonstrate a very good eye for making this small, misty East Coast island both convincingly otherwordly and disturbingly familiar.

The performances are effective as well: The velvet voice of James Earl Jones as the narrator does not make us forget Serling’s unique presence in the original series, but he is an acceptable substitute. Patrick Bergin and Jack Palance, both cult-actors who would have fit fine in Serling’s B-grade series, keep straight faces throughout, though Palance does occasionally wink at the audience. Of course, when the final act comes to its inevitable close as irate zombies lumber about with vengeance on their brains (or is that BRAAAAAINS?), a bit of winking has certainly been earned.

Cast:
James Earl Jones: Narrator
Patrick Bergin: Dr. Ramsey
Jack Palance: Dr. Wheaton
Julia Campbell: Barmaid

A film by O'Hara-Horowitz Productions. Directed by Robert Markowitz. Written by Rod Serling. No M.P.A.A. rating, but fine for kids, though younger children might find it frightening. Running time: 45 minutes. Year of release: 1994. Part of a larger anthology titled The Twilight Zone: Rod Serlings Lost Classics.