He's dead. He lives.
The Dead One is a 2007 American Superhero horror film.
Diego de la Muerte was a young man killed in a car crash. However, he came Back from the Dead with the help of the Aztec gods. Unfortunately for him, this resurrection doesn't come without a price. Diego has become El Puerto, a tormented soul who walks the Earth in search of sacrifices for his masters. However, when they demand his former girlfriend as a sacrifice, El Puerto finds the courage to rebel.
This film contains examples of:
- Ancient Evil: Tezcatlipoca, a god who lead a religion of human sacrifice that was stomped out hundreds of years ago, and is trying to resurrect it in the modern day.
- Big Bad: Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec God of Sacrifice and Diego's initial master.
- The Chosen One: Diego was chosen from childhood to be the instrument for the Aztec gods' return.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Diego's girlfriend's uncle does not like him, because he's a Catholic priest and Diego is a pantheist who constantly argues church doctrine with him.
- Driven to Suicide: Diego tries to shoot himself in the stomach with a shotgun to stop the chaos, but all he succeeds in doing is activating his Healing Factor and causing the shotgun's owner to have a heart attack.
- The Empire: Tezcatlipoca moulded Aztec society into a theocratic empire of conquest and sacrifice. This empire was eventually defeated by the Spanish Empire, who were racist colonizers and just as theocratic, but without the sacrifice.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Tezcatlipoca's final goal is to open a portal to Earth so he can bring about the end of this age and the return of the gods to Earth.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Diego's resurrective Healing Hands become quite handy after he's stabbed in the heart several times.
- Healing Hands: When Diego becomes El Muerto, he gains healing hands so powerful that they can resurrect the dead, with the only limit apparently being that if somebody was sacrificed to the gods, they're gone forever.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Dia de Los Muertos.
- Human Sacrifice: Tezcatlipoca had this as an institution in the Ancient Aztec days, and wants to institute it again in the modern day.
- Our Zombies Are Different: These are revenants brought back by the Aztec gods to serve their will. They look like they did on the exact moment of death, down to any makeup they wore being a permanent skin marking. They have a very strong Healing Factor and the ability to resurrect the dead.
- The Power of Love: Diego breaks free of Tezcatlipoca's control via his love for Maria.
- Predecessor Villain: The Spanish conquistadors are directly responsible for the plot due to crushing the Ancient Evil hundreds of years ago, directly motivating it to return in the modern day. Unlike most characters of this sort, who would be precursor heroes, they were doing this as part of a genocide campaign.
- Red Baron: Tezcatlipoca is also known as the Night Drinker, due to him being the one who delivers sacrificed souls.
- Shout-Out: A shopkeep thinks Diego's still in a Jack Skellington Halloween costume.
- The Sociopath: Tezcatlipoca, a god who moulded the Aztec Empire into a brutal society of mass Human Sacrifice, and spends the film killing everybody who stands between him and bringing this society back. He expresses zero care for his people having genocide committed against them, and is only concerned about his own power.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Diego perceives only a few minutes passing in the afterlife, but returns to Earth exactly one year after his death.
