"I died for you... the least you can do is die for me."
This has to be the weirdest zombie film(or is he a ghost or some sorta vampire?) and at the same time one of the weirdest crazy Vietnam Vet movies. Directed by the great Bob Clark who also gave us the classic BLACK CHRISTMAS and the wacky CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, before going mainstream, this is the story of a soldier returning from a battle in which he may have been killed. Things aren't spelled out that clearly though and it's all done in a cool CARNIVAL OF SOULS-ish way where we're not always sure what the hell is going on. This is a good example of a movie that takes it's time but never really becomes boring. Everything is done well from the acting to the creepy atmosphere. This is obviously an allegory for the returning veteran and how they feel dead inside but taken to a more literal level. More intelligent people than me could probably write long essays about this aspect of the film. For me though it's just an awesome dark-trip through an inverted-nightmarish view of the American family.
Apparently Christopher Walken was an earlier choice for the lead role which probably would have been awesome but I think Richard Backus here is pretty spot-on in his portrayal. It's too bad he went on to TV stuff and didn't make any more features after this. Tom Savini did the makeup FX work on this but there's not really much in the way of gore. There's a great scene of mayhem in a drive-in theater showing a double-bill of DEATH IN SPACE and THE SPACENAUTS, unfortunately I don't think these were real movies. AKA DEATHDREAM, NIGHT WALK, THE NIGHT ANDY CAME HOME, WHISPERS and THE VETERAN
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