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Aufgenommen in die Epilepsie-Filmographie von Kerson, Toba et al.: Implacable Images: Why Epileptiform Events Continue to be Featured in Film and Television, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16793571
http://www.john-libbey-eurotext.fr/en/revues/medecine/epd/e-docs/00/04/1B/94/article.md
"Rufus had catalepsy, the central crux of many a Poe story, and thus feared being buried alive.
.....
In "New England 1892", cruel family patriarch Rufus Sinclair is laid to rest in the family crypt. Bickering begins immediately amongst the surviving family members, and continues into the Reading "Frankly, Roy, I don't give a damn!"of the Will. The Will pretty much gives us the plot of the entire movie: Rufus had catalepsy, the central crux of many a Poe story, and thus feared being buried alive. His many last requests to prevent such an occurrence have already been ignored - the widow didn't wait five days before the funeral, eldest son Bruce didn't consult another physician, etc. - so the second part of the will comes into play, in which Rufus swears to Come Back And Make Each Person Die In The Manner He or She Fears Most (that is some Will! I especially like the fact that it unfolds like a road map).
Handsome cad Bruce (Robert Milli, looking and acting like an evil Clark Gable), will have his face disfigured. The widow Abigail (Helen Warren) will die by fire; asthmatic and alcoholic son Philip (Roy Scheider, in his screen debut) will suffocate; Philip's frustrated wife Vivian (Margot Hartman) will drown; faithful manservant Seth (J. Frank Lucas) will "join me in my tomb"; and nephew- and-all-around-nice-guy James (Robert Benson) will lose that which is most dear to him - obviously, his pretty and equally tepid wife, Deborah (Candace Hilligoss of Carnival of Souls, absolutely wasted here).
...
The cowl comes off, revealing that the murders have all been the work of Philip, who has some serious issues about people making fun of his asthma. Robert arrives, there's a bit of a fight scene, Deborah is rescued from the quicksand, and Philip falls in, thus fulfilling his father's prophecy of his death by suffocation. "
http://www.stomptokyo.com/badmoviereport/reviews/C/livingcorpse.html
"Katalepsie: anhaltendes Verharren in einer bestimmten....Körperhaltung unter Erhöhung der Muskelspannung......." (Lexikon Neurologie, 1995)
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