The Resurrected (1991)

Dan O'Bannon was known for a few things, other than being extremely difficult to work with.  He cowrote and co-starred in Dark Star, wrote Alien and directed The Return of the Living Dead.  Because of the latter he has his own version of zombies named after him.  While he had issues he wasn't the only one in his field that did, and his supposed problems seem tame when compared with a lot of eccentric directors.  Whatever the case, he had early success with his movies and was considered to be quite brilliant.  Therefore, it is a bit of surprise that he only directed two feature films and one of those is almost impossible to find. 

Private investigator John March (John Terry) is contacted by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to find out what her husband Charles (Chris Sarandon) is up to.  He has been acting strange as of late and recently moved into an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island that had once been owned by a  man named Joseph Curwen (Sarandon).  Curwen had been suspected of witchcraft and Charles Dexter Ward now seems to be dabbling into the same, with shipments of bodies being made to the house where he and a mysterious Dr. Ash are doing research.

The more March investigates the more he uncovers unsettling facts.  An old portrait of Curwen looks exactly like Ward, and Claire's husband has begun hanging around with numerous unsavory characters.  There are also several unexplained deaths in the homes near the farmhouse, deaths which seem to be spreading into Providence itself.  There is also Charles's sudden need for raw meat to sustain him.  

The Resurrected, also known as Shatterbrain, is based on "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".  One of the most well-known of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories, Ward is a character that shows up in later stories as well as numerous adaptations of his work.  The original is told by a psychiatrist trying to puzzle things out, while this version, adapted by Brent Friedman, is framed as a modern detective story.  O'Bannon, though not credited as a writer, had been working on his own adaptation of the story, and the movie itself is an amalgamation of the two.

The problem is that Scotti Bros., a record label that had been moderately successful in the 1980s, overreached by trying to produce movies.  The distributor, Interstar, went bankrupt before release.  At some point the entire project was removed from O'Bannon's control and the cut that was released was made, erasing much of the wild humor present in some of his previous movies.  This makes for a serious Lovecraft adaptation in contrast to the more dark-humored versions of Stuart Gordon.  It also means that, as good as the narrative and story are, it feels there is something missing.

If The Resurrected deserved anything it was more time for O'Bannon to assemble his cut.  The performances are not always great, as John Terry and Jane Sibbett are a bit on the bland side, but Chris Sarandon is fantastic and used just the right amount throughout the movie to avoid the performance slipping into camp territory.  It is similar in some ways to In the Mouth of Madness where the main antagonist is kept in the background for a good part of the movie.  

If this seems a bit better produced than most direct-to-video movies at the time it is because it was dumped into stores after any hope of getting it into theaters had passed.  It is a movie that deserves to be seen and deserves a decent re-release by one of the boutique labels.  It may not be a masterpiece, but it proves that O'Bannon had a lot more in him, and probably would have given us even more if things had gone the way they were supposed to. 

The Resurrected (1991)

Time: 108 minutes

Starring: John Terry, Jane Sibbett, Chris Sarandon

Director: Dan O'Bannon