Sometimes They Come Back: Bob Clark’s Deathdream (Blue Underground)

By Thomas M. Puhr.

Much more than an interesting time capsule…it’s also a minor horror classic in its own right, one well-deserving of a spot alongside Clark’s superior genre work.”

Movies like Bob Clark’s Deathdream (aka Dead of Night, aka The Night Andy Came Home, 1974) operate by blunt-force symbolism. In Alan Ormsby’s script about a young soldier who inexplicably returns home after dying overseas, PTSD is reconfigured as a zombie-like resurrection, drug addiction as a need to inject a syringe full of someone else’s blood directly into the arm. Such broad narrative strokes always run the risk of feeling glib, but Clark’s third feature is surprisingly earnest – at times even despairing – in its portrayal of an all-American family torn apart by the ravages of war.

Richard Backus stars as Andy, whose death in Vietnam occurs before the opening credits even start. After he is shot in the chest, his face – captured via freeze frame in a look of horrified disbelief – fades from focus as we hear a woman’s distant, echoing voice: “You can’t die, Andy,” she says. “You can’t die. You promised, Andy.” This voice belongs to Andy’s mother, Christine (Lynn Carlin), who is home in small-town Brooksville having supper with husband Charlie (John Marley) and daughter Cathy (Anya Liffey). Christine’s worries – she hasn’t received a letter from her son in months – are vindicated when a messenger at the front door interrupts dinner, bearing the tragic news that all families of active duty members dread: Andy is dead. This must be some terrible mistake, the mother claims: Andy promised he’d come back.

While his family grieves, Andy literally emerges from a dark void: in the form of a hitchhiker walking along a deserted road at night. The truck driver who picks him up – and who is creeped out by his passenger’s stony silence – will be found dead the next day, with a mysterious needle mark in his arm. When Andy comes knocking in the middle of the night, his parents and sister are of course relieved. Some idiot must have mistakenly identified him as dead, Charlie surmises. But relief quickly gives way to confusion and anger. Andy is different: withdrawn (he sits in a rocking chair for hours at a time, staring into space), secretive (he insists his family not tell anyone, including his girlfriend, that he’s home), violent (in a fit of rage, he strangles the family’s beloved dog). This isn’t the son and brother they knew and loved. Why can’t things just go back to the way they were?

Based on the above synopsis alone, you’d assume Deathdream is a straight-faced drama about a family coming to terms with the toll war has taken on one of their own rather than a proto-slasher. Indeed, some of the best scenes are those in which Clark and Orsmby focus on family dynamics rather than the story’s overtly supernatural elements. Consider, for example, the tension between Andy and Charlie – veterans of two very different wars; when Christine advises her husband to exercise some patience as their son readjusts to civilian life, Charlie complains that “I went through it, too, but when I came back I didn’t act like that.” (Veteran character actor Marley, of Love Story and The Godfather fame, lends a dignified gravitas to Charlie, who could’ve come across as a brutish, insensitive jerk in lesser hands.)

Reconfigured as a zombie-like resurrection…but Clark’s third feature is surprisingly earnest – at times even despairing – in its portrayal of an all-American family torn apart by the ravages of war.”

Those who know Ormsby for cult classics like Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972, also directed by Clark) and Popcorn (1991) may be surprised by his work here. Besides the occasional shot of humor (a local bartender who mistakes “nuptials” for a dirty word, a cameo from the director as a bumbling cop, etc.), his dialogue foregoes laughs in favor of an ironic, bitter edge. A witness to the trucker’s death, considering the possibility that a serviceman would kill someone, laments, “I can’t believe a soldier’d do a thing like that.” Shortly before killing a psychiatrist who suspects him of the trucker’s murder, Andy flatly says, “I died for you, Doc. Why shouldn’t you return the favor?” And the final line, delivered by Christine (who emerges as the film’s protagonist) in a cemetery, is truly heartbreaking.

Bob Clark’s oeuvre is nothing if not absurdly inconsistent, but he was really firing on all cylinders in the ’70s. His direction here occasionally borders on the surreal; when the family shares a laugh shortly after Andy’s return, the director lingers on closeups of their hysterical faces a little too long, so that the moment slowly shifts from the saccharine to the menacing. It’s also interesting to see glimmers – note the handheld POV shots, for instance – of what Clark would do so masterfully just a year later with Black Christmas.

Speaking of early work, Deathdream is also famous for being the uncredited film debut of the legendary Tom Savini (himself a Vietnam veteran). Although gorehounds hoping for Dawn of the Dead-or The Burning-level mayhem will probably be disappointed with these subtle makeup effects (Ormsby was in fact the lead makeup artist), you can definitely sense an attention to detail in the way Ormsby and Savini render the injuries that appear on Andy – including a pus-leaking forehead – when he fails to procure fresh blood from his victims. Still, the film is not without its (occasionally charming) rough edges; the Vietnam-set prologue looks like it was shot in someone’s backyard, and Carl Zittrer’s musical score – with its bursts of shrieking violins – can be a bit distracting.

Fans will find much to enjoy in Blue Underground’s Blu-ray release (marking the film’s 50th anniversary), which boasts not only a new 4k restoration, but also 3 audio commentaries, interviews with Ormsby and Liffey (who reflect on Clark’s lesser-known acting chops; apparently he was a great Falstaff during his theatre days), and more. The commentaries offer plenty of fascinating behind-the-scenes tidbits – including the revelation that Christopher Walken nearly starred as Andy – but perhaps most interesting among the special features is “The First Andy,” in which actor Gary Swanson (who was originally cast as Andy before Backus replaced him) reflects on his screen test footage and offers a succinct breakdown of the film’s message: “they come back dead and just continue to die.”

Sometimes, boutique labels scrape the bottom of the barrel when they rerelease certain “cult classics,” some of which fell into obscurity for a reason; but I’m happy to report that Deathdream is much more than an interesting time capsule (though, having been released just a year after the United States withdrew from Vietnam, it certainly is that); it’s also a minor horror classic in its own right, one well-deserving of a spot alongside Clark’s superior genre work.

Thomas M. Puhr lives in Chicago, where he teaches English and language arts. A regular contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal, he has published Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema with Wallflower Press.