Villain(s)  Spirit Possession

Actor(s):  Peggie Castle, Arthur Franz, Marsha Hunt, Don Haggerty

Brief Description  Back from the Dead (1957) is a black-and-white supernatural horror B-movie directed by Charles Marquis Warren and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Based on the 1952 novel The Other One by Catherine Turney, who also wrote the screenplay, the film combines psychological suspense, demonic possession, and occult themes.

Plot:
The story follows Mandy Hazelton Anthony (Peggie Castle), a newly married, pregnant young woman vacationing on the California coast with her husband, Dick Anthony (Arthur Franz), and her sister, Kate Hazelton (Marsha Hunt). While walking along a moody, dark beach at night, Mandy hears mysterious voices, suffers a severe seizure, and collapses into a coma, which results in a tragic miscarriage. Upon waking, Mandy's personality has completely altered. She is hostile, cold, and a scheming flirt. She explicitly claims that she is not Mandy, but rather Felicia—Dick’s first wife who died six years prior after falling from a nearby cliff.

"Felicia" utilizes intimate secrets and her old pet name for Dick ("Dickens") to convince those around her of her identity. Felicia’s mother, Ada Bradley, is thrilled to have her daughter back, while her father, Mr. Bradley, is utterly horrified. As Kate and her new boyfriend try to understand the transformation, they uncover a local satanic coven. A devil-worshipping cult led by Maitre Renault (Otto Reichow) has used black magic and dark rituals to pull Felicia's evil spirit back from the dead to execute a murderous agenda. Though produced as a low-budget Regal Films "B-picture," modern film historians note that Back from the Dead was structurally ahead of its time. Film critics point out that its blend of domestic paranoia, gaslighting husbands, and devil cults directly prefigures iconic horror masterpieces like Rosemary's Baby (1968).