Just in Time for Easter: A brief guide to the 'Risen From The Dead' Genre

Hey folks, Harry here... today is Easter and as I sit here at home... big chocolate bunny rabbit with gnawed upon ears next to me... I began to ponder the meaning of Easter. Now I'm not a deeply religious person, in fact I tend to explore comparative religion quite a bit... but the one thing about Easter Sunday that I remember and that stuck with me is.... This is the day that Christ ROSE FROM THE GRAVE!!!

Now, I'm not going to get into a historical vs fictional debate here... What I thought I would do is to explore other... Rise from the Dead movies... Give you a list basically of the greatest Risen From The Dead movies ever....

On Easter, nearly everyone brings up BEN HUR, but really... this is a piss poor RISEN FROM THE DEAD movie.... It is a great film mind you, but as for the drama of the resurrection... well... let's just say it is lacking. Wyler was great at many things, but here we only hear about Jesus raising a man that was once dead, and we never see the undead Jesus walking about. So in the Risen From The Dead genre... BEN HUR does not rule.

What is the greatest Risen from the Dead film? Well it depends what you want... the genre can definitely be sub-divided into different categories...

Actually, the most boring of these categories is, strangely enough, the Religious Category.. KING OF KINGS and THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is about all there is... and personally both of those films are... well not very spectacular. KING OF KINGS does have the original captain of the Enterprise as Jesus, a Rip Torn JUDAS and then famed science fiction author Ray Bradbury writing narration spoken by Orson Welles. However, in THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD you have the Duke as a Centurion, Cornelius as Matthew, the Invisible Mas as King Herod, two Blofelds, Illya Kuryakin as Judas, the Red Queen as Claudia, Cyrano, Bela Lugosi, TAYLOR and many many more.... So I believe in the religious Risen From The Dead category... I have to give the award to the film that cast Ming the Merciless as Jesus... THE GREATEST STORY EVERY TOLD! In a sub-genre of the Religious Rise From The Grave Category is CABIN IN THE SKY... watching ol Eddie Anderson being returned to his body... well, tis powerful indeed!

Next, we have the ZOMBIE - Risen from the Dead category... This one is tough... there's just a ton of these... but on Easter, my personal favorite to watch is DAWN OF THE DEAD, cause it does carry the religious theme of, "When there's no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the Earth!" Just overall... this is the best Zombie film in my opinion. Of course... even in the Zombie category you have sub-categories... like Best Atmospheric - I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE.... or Best Zombie Gore - DAY OF THE DEAD... Most Gothic Zombie Film - WHITE ZOMBIE.... and Best Serious Contemplation of VooDoo Zombie - THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW.... Then there is Musical Zombie Films like ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY and THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES (must be seen to be believed) oh... and lastly Best Zombie Comedy - DEAD ALIVE/ BRAIN DEAD! But still, when that bunny comes hopping... I put in DAWN OF THE DEAD!

Next, we have the VAMPIRE - Risen From The Dead category... Well the title that just leaps up is DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, but that's just because of the obvious title similarity... but that isn't even the best Christopher Lee Vampire flick... This... This is the impossible category, because... DEAR GOD, how many Vampire movies are there? On IMDB's Keyword Subject Search there are 383 Vampire flicks... Where to begin? Well... Best Silent Vampire Flick: NOSFERATU... at least until someone finds a print of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. Best Black & White Sound Vampire Flick? The obvious choice would be Bela Lugosi's DRACULA... but I'm gonna go with the Spanish Language version of DRACULA that was shot on the same sets as Lugosi's. While not as iconic as Lugosi... the camera movement and pacing of the film feels far superior. Of course MARK OF THE VAMPIRE is awesome.. as is THE VAMPIRE BAT and DRACULA'S DAUGHTER... but I will still put the Spanish DRACULA against any of those! Best Hammer Vampire Flick? Well, I tend to depart from the regular Hammer fans here... I love Chris Lee's films to death, but my absolute favorite Hammer Vampire flick is THE BRIDES OF DRACULA. Sacrilege? Well... isn't that in keeping with the article thus far? Now in a sub category of favorite Christopher Lee Vampire flick... well then, I'd have to say his 1958 DRACULA is just freakin incredible. If I didn't have such a hard on for those Vampire babes in BRIDES OF DRACULA... I'd be putting on this one this Easter instead!

Best Post-Hammer Vampire Flick -- Ouch... this one is tough... We got so many to choose from... Salem's Lot, Coppola's Dracula, Langella's Dracula, Near Dark, Lost Boys, Cronos, and on and on and on... Ya have the eroticism of Tony Scott's THE HUNGER.... The intensity of Bigelow's NEAR DARK... The coolness of Landis' INNOCENT BLOOD.... The epic grandeur of Neal Jordan's INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE... The Goofy Fun of BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER... The tragic dramatics of SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE... This category is just a bitch... And no matter what I choose, I'm gonna get slapped around like whore that's shortin' her pimp... So... I'll just be out and out honest. My favorite post Hammer Vampire Flick is Tobe Hooper's LIFEFORCE. It isn't traditional... but damn if I don't just love it to death... especially the International Cut of the film. Ok ok... Mathilda May's amazing costume design goes a long way... as does Sadie Frost in Coppola's Dracula... but Hooper's LIFEFORCE dreams of being something grand in the best Quatermass ways! I love that film!

Next is Best Mummy Movie! Now here I can sandwich it all together... the entire history of Mummy Movies... It quite simply never got better than Karloff's THE MUMMY! Now don't get me wrong, I love the Christopher Lee - Hammer- MUMMY - if for no other reason than the fantastic 'poker' scene... and there is always that great AMAZING STORIES episode MUMMY DADDY... and I really love the Mummy in Louisiana brilliance of THE MUMMY'S CURSE... And these new MUMMY movies with Fraser? Well, they cease to be Mummy movies and seem to mainly be video game adventure films... The classic Karloff THE MUMMY though... it is... perfection. The lighting.... the atmosphere... the Jack Pierce Make-Up... Zita Johann, oh my god what a babe!?!?! And Karloff as both Im-Ho-Tep and Ardet Bey, this is my easter egg!

Next is the Risen From The Dead Family Films!!! Want to raise your kids to love the genre of the undead? Start em off with friendly happy family undead flicks... What is the best one? Well... it is tough. On one hand you have Spielberg's E.T. - a wondrous film about that happy curious alien chap, who dies and is seemingly resurrected from his cryo-body-bag to ascend into the heavens... Then you have Disney's PETER PAN. What? Yes, PETER PAN is an undead flick of the highest order... Remember ol dead Tinkerbelle... believe believe... and then she springs back to life with her Marilyn Monroe figure and her fairy dust sprinkling trail? Tink is a flying fairy zombie at the end! And on my shelf at home, it comes between NOSFERATU and PHANTASM... of course it's undead! Then there is Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST... that heart-breaking tear jerking ending... The Beast's limp dead body... Belle's confession of love as the last petal drops... The Beast is not only resurrected, but transformed entirely! These three films lay the groundwork for undead thought in the minds of children everywhere.... But then we have the great debate... In SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS... is Snow White dead or under a spell? And in PINNOCHIO, is Pinnochio living as a wooden boy - or is he only truly alive when he becomes a real boy? Then again you always have to wonder if Pinnochio could walk for hours on the bottom of the ocean screaming out "Faaauuuugggtherrrrrrr!!!" and not drown, how could he drown at the end? Curious convenient rules I suppose... The best of the confirmed Living then Dead? I'd have to go with E.T. unless wooden Pinnochio is alive, then I go with him!

From here... I have highlights... Films that don't belong in one genre or another... but carry the Rise from the Dead edict!

In the Superhero category we have ROBOCOP and THE CROW. Of course with Robocop there is no supernatural causes... just the miracles of modern medicine and mechanics, but Alex Murphy was dead, then wasn't dead... so He's Undead! And THE CROW is just a classic rise from the grave story... literally! My fave of the two? I love Robocop, but emotionally... and for the spirit of Rise from the Grave cinema... THE CROW wins my vote!

Then you have the whole EVIL DEAD trilogy... of which my personal fave has to be EVIL DEAD 2. It has undead girlfriends, undead hand... So much fun... Then there's that IDLE HANDS movie, which while a piss poor xerox of Evil Dead fun... there are still moments of undead hilarity where I was actually quite entertained... if only because I was surprised by the severe nature of some of the action.

A personal fave of mine is Chuck Norris' SILENT RAGE... this movie is just creepy as hell... The dead criminal being injected with a serum then becoming an undead killing machine... How the movie ends though... best ending to a Chuck Norris movie ever! And while I'm on injected dead people plots... UNIVERSAL SOLDIER just sucks from point A to point Z.

Best Risen From The Grave Mouse flick? Gotta be THE GREEN MILE! Really really wonderful treatment to the undead mouse motif!

In the Science Fiction Risen From The Grave Category, we have some fun... There's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE with its plan to take over the world through the re-animation of dead corpses (thus making them living corpses)! Then there is ALIEN 4... which I don't care for... And my second favorite sci-fi undead moment... and that is in THE ABYSS. When Ed Harris brings Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio back from the dead... and the passion of that scene... Well... The ABYSS just really really does it for me.

Now my favorite Sci-Fi Risen From The Grave film also happens to be my favorite Risen from the Grave film period! The film that... well, it is just the tops.

DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL... Mr Carpenter/Klaatu/Michael Rennie.... This is the best film to watch on Easter. Earlier today I learned that both Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart wanted the role of Klaatu badly... Can you imagine? Not I? DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL tells more about us, the process of living and dying and our place in the universe. It is truly the best of the risen from the grave flicks...

I'm sure I've missed some, so feel free in Talk Back to bring them up, I've skipped over some that I just felt... well were not up to snuff so to say.... discuss our differences of opinion... and your own picks... but for me... we've got some great Easter titles here!!!