The Living Ghost

The Living Ghost (1942)

If you want to be sure to see every early zombie movie (because you are obsessed, or a completist), you'll have to watch this one. Yes, this fairly low budget comedy with dramatic lighting and a murder, too. It's a common, lighthearted style from the 1930s and 40s, taking serious themes but putting a cheeky, clever lead in the middle of the situation to give it comic relief.

It's not a terrific formula without some great acting and writing, and this one is a strain. The detective (played by James Dunn) is called into lair of a rich family with some mysterious doings. He's a decent comic type, always in charge and casual and a bit goofy. He's looking for a real criminal or two, however, and so there is a backdrop nights in the garden and thunderstorms in strange houses. It's really rather fun and well done in many cinematic ways.

But it's too often silly and deflating, too. Lighthearted and lightheaded.

The zombie part? That's for real, and if this main zombie is so normal you'll get disappointed, he's still the real thing, and could be an archetype for a shadowy kind of zombie that infiltrates normal society. He's the opposite of the "World War Z" type of superman zombie, and it's a more interesting direction. As the movie progresses the detective (and the tag-along your woman who he's in love with) encounter another zombie, and it gets creepier even as the light comedy persists.

Anyway, watch if you just want a breezy fun time with lots of night and dark filming (which is rather nice overall). And a couple of zombies, more or less.