Hunt plays Kate Hazelton, whose pregnant sister, Mandy (Peggie Castle), miscarries when a strange seizure comes over her during a vacation on the California coast. Kate and Mandy's husband, Dick (Arthur Franz), are horrified when Mandy comes out of the attack claiming to be Dick's dead first wife, Felicia, whom Dick has never even mentioned to Mandy. They become convinced that Felicia has possessed Mandy's body but are unsure how to deal with Felicia or restore Mandy. Kate believes that a local devil-worshiping group that Felicia belonged to might hold the answers, and her quest to save her sister puts her in grave danger from Felicia's cult member mother (Helen Wallace) and the cult leader, Renault (Otto Reichow).
There's a lot going on this narrative that could be really frightening - a malevolent spirit, possession, human sacrifice, murder and attempted murder, curses, and a dog who knows the difference between his beloved mistress and the evil that has replaced her. It's presented so flatly that none of it really grips the imagination, even though Marsha Hunt and Peggie Castle are both doing solid work with their roles. The worst casting is Otto Reichow as the cult leader because he's truly underwhelming when we finally see him. It's impossible to imagine that Felicia and surviving cult member Nancy (Marianne Stewart) are at all attracted to him, much less jealously obsessed. Arthur Franz and Don Haggerty, who plays Kate's love interest, never convey sufficient sense of the horror of the events unfolding, and it's hard to feel much sympathy for Dick when he decided to keep so many secrets from Mandy in the first place. The cinematography does nothing to help the atmosphere, either, although the properly eerie theme music tries to set the right mood. It's not hard to imagine how deliciously creepy this story could have been with someone like Jacques Tourneur directing and camera work that builds rather than deflates the weird menace of characters like Felicia and her mother. Low-budget horror can still be compelling and spine-tingling, as cult classics like Night Tide (1961), Carnival of Souls (1962), and Val Lewton's RKO pictures prove, and it's a shame the original novel by Hollywood screenwriter Catherine Turney didn't get a better adaptation, even though she also penned the screenplay for the film.
The story's potential to be an effective horror tale stems from Turney's work as the original author of the novel, The Other One, and as an experienced film writer who contributed to pictures like My Reputation (1946), A Stolen Life (1946), and The Man I Love (1947). You can learn more about her by reading Rosanne Welch's brief 2026 article for Script. The actual 1952 novel might be hard to find these days, but a Kirkus review from its original release says that it "has a certain glow and a definite gloss and provides an evening's entertainment." See more of Marsha Hunt in Born to the West (1937), the 1940 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, in which she plays Mary Bennet, and The Valley of Decision (1945). Peggie Castle also appears in Payment on Demand (1951), I, the Jury (1953), and 99 River Street (1953). Charles Marquis Warren, who directed Back from the Dead, is remembered mainly for his work with Westerns, which might partly explain the problems with his direction of a supernatural horror picture. For contrast, try the far more successfully scary picture, Night of the Demon (1957), which came out the same year as Back from the Dead, or the truly weird possession story, Supernatural (1933).
