Director: Bob Clark
Year: 1974
Country: United Kingdom/Canada
Alternate Titles: Dead of Night; The Night Andy Came Home; The Night Walker; Whispers; King of the Grave; It Came from the Grave; The Veteran
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
After returning home from the war, a young man's sudden change of behavior alarms his parents, who slowly realize the monster he's becoming and try to stop his insatiable bloodlust, causing him to run wild throughout town and forcing them to stop his rampage.
Review:
This one was quite a disappointing effort as there's really not a whole lot right here. What this one really does well is the rather innovative use of dealing with the subject matter at hand, detailing the condition afflicted here without really over-exposing it all that much. By going with the symptoms here for PTSD as a lynchpin for the change in behavior here, this manages a pretty remarkable feat of giving the film a realistic-based backstory motivation for the horrific behavior but also a thoroughly unique and creative one that doesn't seem all that far-fetched here to possibly happen. Unfortunately, the only other working part here is the film's two horror scenes, where he traps and stalks a doctor in his office after realizing the truth, and the finale where a thrilling encounter at a drive-in leads to a frantic car-chase through the streets of town with a flaming car and a nice crash-stunt that makes this one all the more enjoyable as it's really the main part of this that works.
Despite the originality of going with the backstory explanation for the film, the biggest problem is that nothing of interest is done with it. The film tries to make it seem like being cold, distant, and completely devoid of interest in interacting with family or friends is cause for being the creepiest tactics imaginable, and yet all they do is drag the film out with scene after scene of the same behavioral tendencies, and nothing is done about it, either by his parents or anyone around him. Nothing about these are scary, and when combined with the majority of time spent here detailing the family life where the dad becomes convinced something's wrong and the mother is in absolute denial about everything doesn't help matters by focusing on drama rather than horror because what's shown isn't that scary which makes her behavior seem overblown and needless, while his just drags the film along lifelessly.
This is furthered by the fact that the supposed mystery about the mysterious soldier being responsible for the early off-screen death here is so clumsily done that it's impossible to come to any other conclusion here other than he did it as the evidence is so clear-cut and delivered in such a clumsy manner that the police look like incompetent fools for not seeing it, making these go on for what seems like forever. The last big problem is that the film really only deals with horror elements in two scenes, which are completely unscary, so their effectiveness is really questionable, especially the finale with the laughable make-up effects used here. These are what really hurt this one overall.
Overview: *.5/5
A disappointing and heavy-handed vampire effort, this one manages to get some worthwhile factors to it, but they are more detrimental and damaging, which lowers this one overall because of those issues. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare, or who are interested in it, will want the most to like it here, as pretty much everyone else should heed caution with it.
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