


- Andy throttles the dog
- The doctor examines Andy to learn he has no pulse and audible heartbeat
- After killing his sweetheart, and sis’s boyfriend, Andy plows over an innocent kid
- Did I already mention the mother/undead-son flaming car chase?

Tags: Repeat Offenders
Wasn’t there some implication that the mother was responsible for bringing him back from the dead? I seem to remember a scene of her sitting in her chair the night they receive the telegram, muttering something over and over. I had recently read The Monkey’s Paw, so thought it was a similar theme of be careful what you wish for. And the son didn’t really want to return–wasn’t he trying to dig his own grave at the end? Another movie I’d forgotten about, thanks for the post!
Yep, the film is a nice variation on The Monkey’s Paw, and there is a quick shot of the mom rocking in the chair, clutching the telegram and praying that her son is not really dead. Also, I didn’t want to give away the full details of the ending, so I omitted Andy’s graveyard antics. It’s a pretty powerful ending with the cops with their guns drawn surrounding the grave and Andy’s mom finally letting go.
I saw this movie years ago … let me see if I can recall, final line: “Andy’s home”. I think that was it.
After I watched it, I went and hunted down Children Shouldn’t Play with Death Things (and these were the very, very early days of VHS and Beta).
I need to see this movie, but what I really, REALLY need is one of those SWEET Captain America softball shirts! That totally RULES!
I totally tried to look up a Monkey’s Paw adaptation I saw in school when I was about 12 (that would be 1983), and I swear it starred Frances Bay (Blue Velvet), but I couldn’t find it. Does anyone know of it?
Anyway, nice review. Deathdream is one of my favorite horror movies. It’s quietly unsettling and very effective. This movie made me fall in love with Alan Ormsby… I already loved Bob Clark. The star of this movie, Richard Backus went on to write on my all time favorite soap opera, One Life to Live, which is interesting, because they do use a lot of horror elements and techniques on their show… to this day. Recently (by recent, I mean in the last 5 years), they did this ‘cross-promotion’ and had a character write a novel on the show, which the show’s head writer actually wrote for real and released under the character’s name. The storyline in the book corresponded with the storyline on the show, and the book made several references to Halloween (outright even), and the show featured a death pulled out of Blood and Black Lace.
OK, that was a whole lotta nothing. Like, I said… Good review!