Gary Brandner didn’t just write The Howling, he also wrote a book called Walkers, in which a woman named Joanna Raitt nearly drowns at a party and soon finds the undead coming after her, trying to bring her back to the world of the dead. If you’re thinking that a lot of that sounds very Carnival of Souls, well, the movie will confirm that suspicion.
The trailer for this kept talking about how it was directed by the master of suspense, but never said who it was. The answer is Paul Wendkos, who I guess gets that title from making The Legend of Lizzie Borden, Haunts of the Very Rich and The Mephisto Waltz.
Joanna is played by Lindsay Wagner and she’s torn between two loves — her current man Glen Eastman (Robin Thomas) and her old dude Peter Langford (Bruce Boxleitner) — when she isn’t being chased by zombies or shadow people or whatever this is, across two nights and nearly four hours of your life (with commercials).
Diahann Carroll shows up as Joanna’s boss and wow, her shoulder pads are out of control and probably worth watching this movie to see.
From the Dead of Night‘s screenplay was written by Bill Bleich, who wrote some pretty decent other movies, like The Hearse, The Midnight Hour and The Gladiator. He was also a producer, writer and creative consultant for Poltergeist: The Legacy, which was the TV series inspired by the film.
You can watch this on YouTube.
