Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Chantel Contreras It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Idiot-Deluxe Enter: The Dead Talk Back.......... there's really very little to talk about when reviewing this sad, lame little movie; it's history is easily the most interesting fact surrounding it.The basic plot is this, first off it's a murder-mystery/who-done-it type - and not a good one. It involves a cast of about 12 people, most of which live in the same boarding house, including an odd-ball scientist named Henry Krasker (played by Aldo Farnese), who has invented "a radio that can speak to the dead" in the confines of his small, VERY humble, basement laboratory; it's really only here, when the movie takes place in his lab that the movie is at all, even mildly, entertaining - and that occurs twice, in the beginning and the end. A murder occurs on the front porch of the boarding house, a young woman (a model) is murdered by a crossbow of all weapons. Not surprisingly a murder investigation ensues and a couple of police detectives arrive and stay till the movies end, questioning everyone in the house, they are certain one of the lodgers is the murderer and their right about that. As it happens Dectective A and Detective B are old pal's of Henry's and he helps them in solving the case and this all eventually happens down in his laboratory; but mind you it's NOT with ground-breaking science that this is achieved, but rather with a few cheap theatrics/parlor tricks (most of which literally have "strings attached") and a woman disguised as someone who she's not. This is when the killer is spooked by all the bogus para-normal activity that's buzzing around in Dr. Krasker's laboratory, the killer cracks under the suspense of it all, breaks down and confesses - and then, well the copper's have their man.On a visual basis, you could say that this film looks flat or even "dead", because every single frame of The Dead Talk Back is profoundly drab, bleak and totally mundane - there's NOTHING remotely interesting, let alone stimulating to see here folks. You could say that The Dead Talk Back comes up short on the eye-candy... and for that matter anything and everything else too. As I said all entertaining (I use that word lightly) scenes happen down in the doctor's laboratory and the movies at it's best when he's talking directly to the camera, because his dialog is hilariously ridiculous at times and the laboratory props seen here are among the cheapest and lamest EVER in any movie. The thought is "so with... this, you're going to talk to the dead, huh?". Part of the Doc's "special radio" appears to be literally nothing more than a grapefruit-sized ball of aluminum foil, tacked onto a circular piece of wood.......wow. Like I said the props are unbelievably cheap, but yet that's also part of it's entertainment value. The Dead Talk Back is the definition of a "shoestring-budget" production.And now on to the fun part.The strange history behind this crappy movie is a uniquely amusing and unusual one. I've read different and slightly varying accounts, but the story goes that after this movie was filmed in 1957, it was then when during it's editing phase, that for whatever reason the company behind it abandoned it. I suspect they (quickly) went out of business. And supposedly there it sat, half-way edited for over 30 years (36 to be exact, from 1957 to 1993). Then in 1993 the film was found by some people who where cleaning out this musty long-abandoned building, it was said to be found with the film reels still locked into the editing machine - 36 years later. My guess is that what they stumbled upon, was the lone existing print of this anti-climatic cinematic curiosity; coated in many layers of dust where it had been patiently waiting for it's long-delayed world premiere, that was more than 30 years over-due. The people who found it, saw to it that it was finally edited to completion and shared it with the rest of the world. It was then, possibly less then a year after it was initially found, that it became an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which is really it's only source distribution and is how most people know about: The Dead Talk Back! The less funny and less unusual account goes, that it was indeed fully edited and ready to go, but was simply left sitting on a shelf, in a film-reel case and was left to collect dust for decades.Ironic Timing (so close):With a little looking around on the internet, an ironic fact was uncovered, the incredibly ironic date-of-death of Aldo Farnese, who died on July 28th, 1994, just -2 DAYS- before the initial airing of The Dead Talk Back as an episode of MST3K on July 30th, 1994. Now here's a movie that had been collecting dust for 37 years and it's "star" ends up dying 2 day's before The Dead Talk Back was FINALLY unleashed upon the world.....................jeez, to bad old Aldo couldn't of hung around for a few more days, he could have watched his one AND ONLY movie. I guess what I'm saying is, that Aldo could have died "artistically satisfied".The Dead Talk Back has it's moment's, but really none of it is any good.....

bensonmum2 It's almost impossible to find out anything about The Dead Talk Back. It was made in 1956 or 1957 (depending on which sources you're look at) and immediately shelved. As far as I can tell, it was never shown anywhere. I'm assuming that sometime around 1993, Sinister Cinema found the film and somehow procured the rights to it and released it on video. I assume 1993 because that's the year listed on IMDb for the movies release. Somehow The Dead Talk Back came to the attention of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and was included on their Season 6 schedule. That's about it as far as the story behind The Dead Talk Back. If it weren't for MST3K, I doubt this thing would have more than 5 votes on IMDb.As for the movie, it's mind-numbingly awful. It's dull, uneventful, and a total waste of time. The acting ranges from over-the-top to, well, no acting at all. The special effects look like they came from a 1950s Radio Shack equivalent clearance sale. The plot attempts to include elements of horror, drama, mystery, science fiction, and every other genre you can name and fails miserably at each. There's so little entertainment value in The Dead Talk Back that the MST3K crew seemed to have trouble with it. They just didn't seem as "inspired" and, as a result, this is one of the weaker episodes of MST3K I've seen.

dbborroughs I'm coming late to the game on this one,and I'm so disappointed. It was shown as part of the sixth season of Mystery Science 3000 which how most people have run across it. The story is that Sinister Cinema discovered the film at the Headliner offices and promptly snapped up the rights to this 1957 horror/crime drama. Bad movie lovers have been feeling the pain ever since.The plot concerns a woman living in a boarding house who is murdered. The subsequent police investigation includes a machine to talk to the dead. Everyone the woman lived and worked with are suspects.What can I say about this movie? Its hysterical. I could almost believe that the film was a joke except that there is too much evidence to suggest otherwise. It opens with a nonsensical silent sequence of a man following a woman at night., It moves on to the criminologist explaining about his invention to talk to the dead. From there we get misplaced voice over narration, dialog sequences that seem to have been randomly cut together, a woman who inexplicably disrobes as she speaks to the police, The murder victim clearly holding the arrow to her chest, differing murder weapons in different sequences, loopy dialog and some of the wildest hair on record. Its a bad movie lovers dream. I'm going to have to watch this again just to see all of the mistakes, miscues and oddball choices for myself.This is a movie to get your hands on and pick apart. I know MST3K did just that but this movie is so ripe for destruction that odds are you and your friends and loved ones will come up with infinitely better lines. This is a classic bad movie.If you want to have a good time with your friends find this movie and watch it, just go easy on the popcorn you might just choke to death when you're laughing.

Aaron1375 I saw this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as I am sure most people did. What is interesting is that this film may have been made in the 50's, it was never officially released until 1993 by one of those video companies that released more obscure stuff back in the day. This film caught the eye of crew of MST3K for obvious reasons and this film probably became more well known and famous than anyone who worked on it ever thought it would be. It is bad, do not get me wrong, but I did find it very amusing and at times even interesting. As far as fodder for MST3K this is more watchable than more of few films they have done in the past. The movie contains horrid acting for the most part as the police officers were the best actors and that is not saying a lot. The scientist, Henry Krasker, put in an over the top performance that made him very amusing and the film was more awesome when he was in it! What is more interesting is the ways they try to illicit confessions in some of the scenes, the ones that did not just kind of stop suddenly.The story, Renee, a woman who lives in a boarding house is going to be murdered. This is in no way a spoiler as a voice over is going to literally keep informing you of her diminishing time to live. He nearly calls it down to the second! Afterwards, the police try to figure out who could have killed this young lady with a crossbow and they suspect nearly every male in the boarding house, except Henry Krasker who is working on a way to talk to the dead. He will assist the police as they try and track down the killer and hold a wacky seance or two while they're at it. Who could the killer be and will Krasker's radio to communicate with the dead be used by Renee to identify her killer? This made for an excellent episode of MST3K. The only weak part to this episode is the short that precedes the film about ice cream freezers. Never a really big fan of the shorts they did, though there were a couple of good ones. The jokes for the film itself were great as every time Krasker was on the screen they had plenty of fodder to riff on. Not only him, nearly every character was done in such a cartoon like way that there was not shortage of jokes they could make as you had the very suspicious German man with a dark past, the self proclaimed preacher man, the cool cat who wanted to work as a radio DJ and several more! So this was not a good film by any means; however, they had an interesting enough story so that the thing made for a great MST3K episode throughout. The film also featured crossbow killings, models with secrets, record store clerks with secrets, everyone with secrets and did I mention the bongo players? In the film for maybe two minutes max and they get in the opening credits! So, if you want to see this film, watch the MST3K version and you will not be disappointed and remember, you too may only have 37 minutes left to live!