Staying within the horror genre, we revisit the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They? – The 1,000 Greatest Horror Films (2025 Edition) featured Letterboxd List where we find The Walking Dead.
Title: The Walking Dead
Director: Michael Curtiz
Released: March 1, 1936 (Theatrical – United States)
Runtime: 1 hour 6 minutes
Judge Roger Shaw (Joe King) has just sentenced a man to ten years in prison for embezzling public funds. A group of local racketeers, including the defense attorney Nolan (Ricardo Cortez), decides that the judge needs to die. They have the perfect fall guy for their plan in John Ellman (Boris Karloff).
Ellman was recently released from his own ten-year sentence, and Judge Shaw just so happens to be the man who sentenced him. He’s approached and asked only to keep tabs on Shaw over reports of an affair. One night, Shaw is shot and killed in his car. Ellman, doing what he was told and surveilling Shaw, hears the commotion and comes out from hiding. Given how quick he is on the scene, Ellman is pegged as the murderer.
Nancy (Marguerite Churchill) and Jimmy (Warren Hull) happen to be driving by as the murder occurs, witnessing men transfer Shaw’s body to another car. As they’re trying to comprehend what they see, a mysterious man tells them that it is in their own best interest to remain quiet.
Ellman goes on trial, with Nolan as his attorney no less, and is found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Nancy and Jimmy’s consciences get the best of them and they decide to come forward and say that Ellman isn’t the killer. However, their efforts are too late as Ellman’s execution has already been carried out.
But what if Ellman’s body could still be brought back to life?
Calling The Walking Dead a “horror” movie is a bit of a stretch, even by 1936 standards.
With a runtime that just barely crosses the one-hour mark, the film is a crime drama more than anything for the better part of the first half. To its credit, it’s an entertaining crime drama. The “will they, won’t they” surrounding Nancy and Jimmy coming forward to prove Ellman’s innocence, the tension around whether the governor’s call will come in time, both draw you in and get you invested in Ellman’s outcome. The scenes of him on death row are arguably some of the best in the film.
After the execution is when the dynamic shifts to a thriller with horror elements. The revival scene is the clearest example, with Dr. Beaumont’s (Edmund Gwenn) artificial heart pumping in close-up while the lab is filled with electricity. Sure, it’s easy to draw comparisons between elements of this and Frankenstein. Karloff stars in both, his character is reanimated in both, and he plays a sympathetic character who is misunderstood. But where Frankenstein is about the creator, this is about a man who has already been failed once by the system.
In terms of Karloff’s performance, he isn’t given a whole lot to work with, but he makes the most of it. His eyes tell more of a story than any line of dialogue he has. Take the piano recital where the camera circles the room while Ellman fixates on the people who set him up. Despite having no memory of what happened to him, he seems to know exactly who his enemies are, the realization reading clear as day across his face.
The Walking Dead is certainly a film of two halves, unfortunately they don’t quite come together. If you’re a fan of Boris Karloff, it’s worth seeking out for his performance. Otherwise, I wouldn’t put this on any Halloween “must-watch” lists.