Fantastic!

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

In this hilariously idiotic horror flick, a droll, overacting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-lookalike builds a machine to ask a murder victim who killed her. "The Dead Talk Back" is the sort of movie that even Ed Wood would have considered amateur...and I love it just for that. I should note that probably the easiest place to find this stinker is on "MST3K". On that episode, not only do Mike, Servo and Crow turn the movie into a mixture of Eddie Deezen, "Bewitched", and other things, they dress up like the other dead: the Grateful Dead.So, it's a delightfully pathetic piece of cinema history. You're sure to love it. Too bad that they didn't show more of Renee in that one scene; she was hot.

At the opening, you see some guy in a trench coat running around in the dark, watching two people on a date. Soon, this detached scene makes way for some recluse masquerading as a "scientist" who welcomes you into his quasi-Halloween type laboratory. He demonstrates for you an array of inventions here, such as a fog horn you can take to your grave, in case you wake up in your coffin after being buried. He also shows you a pebble that he uses to tune into dead peoples' radio stations. He has hair that looks like Don King on steroids, and he sounds like Pee Wee Herman's evil twin. A brutal murder of a woman at a boarding house where a crossbow is used (!) is counted down to with a stop watch, as you meet the other tenants, who are the suspects in the killing: the elderly landlord, the victim's friend, a bible thumping zealot, a toothy-voiced DJ on a 5 watt radio station, a stereotypical German guy, a wimpy underweight peeping-Tom, and the landlord's daughter and bratty grandchildren. The characterizations are wonderfully and comically over-emoted and strained to the breaking point, especially by the wimp, the German, and the zealot. These guys are hysterical, but then, so is the bizarre version of a seance, where the goofy scientist tries out his invention to contact the victim. I love the red herring conclusion, which absent-mindedly ignores the whole premise of the movie.The odd thing is how seriously the movie takes itself, as it endeavors to portray psychic investigations, and mix it with a murder mystery. The acting, scripting, and editing make this "strange case" come off as ludicrous camp. The MST3K gang had a field day with this one, and any connoisseur of humorously inept film making needs to see this movie.

No budget murder/mystery film at it's best. This film was dug up in 1993 after it was decided that it shouldn't be released to the theaters. Why I don't know since there were decisions to release Manos: The hands of fate and the whole directorial library of cinematic genius Coleman Francis. Granted The Dead Talk Back is a crappy film but nothing compared to the Coleman Francis trilogy of terror!! We never do find if the dead really do talk back or if they go fishing with Robert Culp. Aldo Farnese plays Henry Krasker, part loopy scientist, part assistant to the LAPD who's asked by a local detective to find out who killed one of Henry's neighbors. is it the German perv? The religious fanatic? Francis the talking mule? Naw just the smooth DJ who had a brief fling with Renee. In the end you don't care except how Krasker got those neat grey streaks in his hair!!

Dreadful, awful, terrible mishmash that sat on the shelf for almoost 30 years before the Best Brains guys(the loonies behind MST3K) decided to unleash its stench upon an unsuspecting world. A strange goober with weird facial hair invents, among udder things, coffin horns, and a device which transmits radio signals so that the "so-called dead" can cowmoonicate with the living. He's called on to investigate the pointless murder of a female border, killed by a curtain rod. Everyone in the film is an idiot or a caricature. We see the murder toss his shoes in the drink, but hide the murder weapon at the scene under some leaves and newspapers. Another idiot spouts out hilarious religious "testimonials". One character, "Fritz Kreuger", looks like child molestation personified. Several voice-overs, each sounding like the udder, cowtribute to the cowfusion. This is one of those rare bungles that not only looks as though they hired soup kitchen bums to act, but was probably filmed right there at the soup kitchen! The first ten minutes of this film are about as clear as a septic tank, and it goes downhill from there. One funny mooment occurs when one of the dippy children(director's kids!), who apparently live in a closet, remarks "Haaallelujiah!". It doesn't appear that anyone involved with this sorry mess ever worked in the biz again, moooch to our cowlective relief. This stilted, half-baked mess is the responsibility of Merle S. Gould, who wrote, produced, and directed this failure on less than a shoe string budget. No wonder it sat on a shelf unreleased for 30 years! Even for schlock fans, it's pretty heavy going, and not nearly as funny as the MST3K 'bots make it out to be. The MooCow says these "Dead" shoulda' stayed in the ground, where they belonged. Only schlock cowpleatists(such as the MooCow!) need bother with this flimsy flop. :=8P