Review: The Dead Next Door (1989)

Directed by: J.R. Bookwalter
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Pete Ferry, Bogdan Pecic
Written by: J.R. Bookwalter
Music by: J.R. Bookwalter
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Tempe Digital)
IMDb

Although J.R. Bookwalter’s The Dead Next Door is an impressively made slice of Super 8 carnage with stellar and inventive practical effects and a more engaging story than most of its super-indie brethren, it was also powered by the funds and executive production of “The Master Cylinder” — better known as Sam Raimi, who used his paycheck from Evil Dead 2 (1987) to make this flick. And Raimi brought along pal Bruce Campbell, who provides dubbing for the main character, named … Raimi (but Campbell doesn’t actually appear on screen). With that sort of talent involved, at the top of their gory games, it’s a wee bit easier to make a memorable horror movie on a shoestring budget.

The movie follows the “Zombie Squad,” a group of zombie hunters that are helping to round up the undead as lab rats for a slightly mad scientist searching for the cure, as they always are. On one outing, the Squad stumble across a death cult eager to assist the zombies in the destruction of humanity as penance for its sins. Although horror flicks at this budget are typically more distracted by spectacle than story, Bookwalter has a pretty clear of where he wants to go, and thankfully he wants to go somewhere fairly interesting. Cult kooks leveraging a zombie apocalypse as an excuse for their whacked-out, drug-spurned goings on is pretty inspired. The “cure” being developed by our resident crazy clinician sort of revives the consciousness of the previously undead without alleviating their physiological predicament, which results in a more self-aware version of Romero’s Bub and provides some opportunities for existential commentary, a little comedy, and empathy.

All that is well and good and does provide a lot more substance and a spark of uniqueness that you typically wouldn’t expect at the amateur level. But Bookwalter knows we’re here for the grue, and papa certainly feeds his hungry, morbid children. There’s a snazzy gore gag every few minutes, and there are a handful that rival the best stuff to spill from Tom Savini’s brain. Although what impressed me most was the expanded use of puppetry and animatronics. Yeah, those sorts of zombies don’t look as realistic, but they’re super fun and 8-year-old me, whom I keep safely locked in a tiny space just inside my rib cage, giggles every time one of those kind of janky, hand-crafted sons of bitches makes an appearance. This approach gives The Dead Next Door a vibe that’s more Return of the Living Dead Part II than Day of the Dead, and that’s just dandy with me.

Bookwalter and team manage to compile a sleeker, more interesting zombie jaunt than you could hope for given the meager trappings of their production (and bloated body of zombie films). Having a few professional horror filmmakers involved did not hurt, though it’s very obvious that everyone working on this flick loves what they’re doing, given the plentiful homages and awareness enough of the quickly forming subgenre tropes to avoid them like shambling, idiot living corpses. However, The Dead Next Door’s ability to burrow into your memory for the long term is hurt by its existence in a purgatory of sorts: it’s got too much sheen, narrative cohesion, and professionalism to compete with the most absurd, outrageous no-budget horror but not enough to stand with the classics.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10