User Reviews

Spoiler Alert.. What a wonderfully fun very odd film! I'm not sure where to start..

Set in the 1800′s (I think, it really didn't say) our story begins with a unfortunate man getting beheaded while his partner in crime is waiting for his turn. During the wait, he tells his story.

He was a grave robber. At first it was an innocent endeavor to earn some money but as time went on he starts to encounter unusual corpses.

This movie has it all, vampires, aliens and zombies..oh my!

This is a fun movie for teens and adults (no younger kids), it really does have it's scary moments.

This movie was fun, if all over the board.

It essentially follows the comedic romp of two grave-robbers in 19th century England, who move from conventional body snatching to trafficking in vampires, zombies and dead Roswell aliens. (I have no idea what the Roswell alien was doing in there, and neither did the producers, I think.)

But was it funny? You bet. Even Ron Perlman, who is often the kiss of Direct to DVD Death was pretty good in this one as a priest who turns out to be the ringleader of a rival gang of body-snatchers.

A real joy to watch this hilarious little film, and a good example of what you can do when you don't have larger than life egos on either side of the camera.

I SELL THE DEAD (2009) **1/2 Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman, Angus Scrimm, John Speredakos, Eileen Colgan, Brenda Cooney. Uneven blend of horror and comedy that poses as a valentine to the '60s horror films by Roger Corman and Hammer Studios, with two cretinous grave robbers (Monaghan and Fessenden) facing final punishments for the crimes via the guillotine but not before their tales of the occult can be recalled in flashbacks. Amusing and a few well sprinkled jolts but really a mess of a B-movie trying in vein to be a cult classic largely thanks to the casting of genre vets Perlman and Scrimm to no avail; a good rental for Halloween. (Dir: Glenn McQuaid)

Surprisingly uninteresting movie considering the subject matter; bland and uninvolving, with lackluster performances. Only during the initial "resurrection" (when it turns out that the resurrection men have resurrected a vampire) does anything even remotely interesting happen: the corpse is shown twitching spastically as it returns to life- just before it attacks. The attack itself, however, doesn't amount to much (it's brief, and not very well staged). The only other chance the filmmakers have to "grab" their audience occurs when the two blackguards unearth what turns out to be the corpse of- wait for it- an extraterrestrial. What might've been a classic scene, however, is handled ineptly: when the Mothership (one assumes; it's never actually shown) "spirits" the corpse away, the graverobbers just shrug it off and retire to the local pub for the night. The opportunities missed time and again make I SELL THE DEAD less than compelling viewing.

I saw 'I Smell the Dead' -- sorry, 'I SELL the Dead' -- at a press screening. Glenn McQuaid, the film's writer-director-editor, is a laddish Irishman who introduced the screening by announcing that -- whilst it was in progress -- he would be 'going out for a pint'. I don't begrudge him a drink, but -- by telling us about it -- he seemed to feel he needed to certify his laddishness or his Irishness, or both. When the opening credits rolled, there were -- as usual at press screenings -- loud ovations for the names of every actor or crew member who'd got friends in the audience, and silence for those who hadn't. McQuaid returned for a witty Q&A afterwards.

This horror movie doesn't take itself seriously, which is good because its humour is considerably stronger than its horror. Only one scene is even remotely scary, and most of the 'horror' is merely gross-out, but I laughed throughout much of the film.

This movie appears to be set in Ireland circa 1850 (by which time grave-robbing was mostly defunct). The story is told in flashback: we get flashbacks within flashbacks, and the narrating character flashbacks material that he couldn't know about, because sometimes he wasn't present or (in one case) because the action is unfolding behind his back.

The story begins with a prisoner being taken to the guillotine. Guillotines weren't used in 19th-century Ireland, but -- for once -- we actually see a plausible guillotine sequence. The prisoner struggles on his way to execution, the rope cleats are accurate, and the prisoner manages to look up to see the blade overhead. (And there's a payoff later to justify the historically inaccurate use of the guillotine itself.)

The characters are ostensibly Irish, but one major character speaks in Cockney slang: using phrases like "a mug's game" and "take a butcher's" (for 'have a look'). For once, actors in 19th-century roles display 19th-century dental hygiene, yet nearly all the clothes and hairstyles (and the women's make-ups) are resolutely 21st-century. I'm not complaining in the case of Heather Bullock, who wears a very fetching black miniskirt cozzie that appears to be PVC. Phworr!

The lead actors (except Ron Perlman) are excellent, but most of the supporting cast have no sense of the Victorian period. The worst offender is Joel Garland as the publican, whose characterisation is firmly rooted in the twenty-first century. Just when I thought that Garland's performance couldn't get any less Victorian, he used his fingers to make "ironic" air-quotes.

The sets (especially Angus Scrimm's lab) are detailed and impressive, yet failed to convince me that people actually lived and worked in these places. Nearly every interior contains burning candles, but never once did I see what would have been there if these were actual Victorian homes or workplaces: leftover drippings from previous candles.

One scene features an extra-terrestrial: I was annoyed that McQuaid plumped for a stereotypical "grey" Schwa alien, rather than something original.

There are splendid montage sequences, but McQuaid opts for flashy effects -- split-screens, overhead shots -- that don't serve the story. I was impressed by a recurring blue-screen device superimposing the main characters' heads over other backgrounds. Less effective was a recurring 'Creepshow'-style motif of camera shots morphing actors' faces into drawings resembling panel art from 1950s EC horror comics. I'm a fan of EC Comics, but they don't belong in 19th-century Ireland. The money that McQuaid spent on flashy photo F/X -- showing off his editing skills without serving the story -- should've been spent on accurate costumes.

BIG SPOILERS NOW. Ron Perlman gives an "Oirish" performance full of acting-school tics. Ostensibly playing a 19th-century Irish priest, he writes with his left hand. (In Victorian Ireland, left-handed children were punished for using "the devil's hand" and were forcibly retrained to become righties.) But Perlman's character turns out to have a reason for concealing his right hand. Elsewhere, a character is bitten by a zombie yet suffers no ill effects, so I knew there'd be a payoff later. Several scenes that would more logically take place at night are shot in daylight, apparently only because this was easier and less expensive. (Since McQuaid is a proficient director and editor, he could easily have shot "day for night" ... but using a process-photography effect to help tell the story seems to interest him much less than showing off his flashy editing techniques.)

McQuaid seems to be giving homage to those great old Hammer horror flicks. But those Hammers were so great because the actors and production designers worked hard to convince us that we were actually witnessing events in 1888 Whitechapel, or wherever. 'I Sell the Dead' almost entirely fails to evoke the 19th century.

Glenn McQuaid shows talent as a director, scripter and editor, yet in all three capacities here he makes odd choices ... then largely fails to justify those choices. But I enjoyed 'I Sell the Dead'. I'll rate it 7 out of 10, and I look forward to his next movie.

I'm sure if I could have understood a lot of the dialogue this movie might have been rated higher, but alas, what with the "Cockney" accents and mumbling, and sometimes the background noise/music was too loud, well, I missed probably a lot of the jokes and why a scene could have been good. I did read of others needing to turn on the subtitles, if available, and also how some "Brits" said bad things about us "Yanks" because we cannot understanding them; but rest assured that a lot of us cannot understand more and more American-made movies, starring American actors, much either. There is too much mumbling, talking too fast, or the dialogue is drowned out. That being said, from what I could get out of this movie, I found it a little different, but also wondered just what this movie was supposed to be. Another movie, in a growing list I'm afraid, of misled genres, so to speak. This movie is a comedy-horror, but other than a few scenes, and the one on the beach with the ghouls, I did not find a lot of this movie funny. Clever yes, funny no. But you can be clever only so long. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!! And I figured that our "hero" was going to be saved one way or another at the end. That was very obvious, made more so after the island scene with the undead. I think younger audiences will like this movie much more than us Old Folks, so if you're an AARP member, stick with Streep.

Grave robber is sitting in his cell awaiting execution is visited by a monk wishing to take down his last words for posterity and as a warning to others about the horrible life he lead. At first reluctant, but with his tongue loosened up by drink the young grave robber is soon telling his story which is full of the dead, the undead and things that go bump in the night.

New York lensed horror film (filmed in part on Staten Island which no doubt brought the spirit of Andy Milligan lurking about) is one of the better horror comedies to come around in a while. This is an often very funny film that just spins its story out in every which way. The cast is first rate. Dominic Monaghan plays Arthur Blake the grave robber telling his story. Ron Perlman is Father Duffy the monk taking the statement and perhaps getting too involved in the tale. Both men are clearly having a grand old time and it shows. The rest of the cast is equally as good. The music by Jeff Grace is excellent. The effects are perfect for this sort of ghoulish silliness. The film is a great deal of fun. If there is any trouble with the film its that perhaps it throws its net a little wide so as the result has way too much going on. I don't want to give too much away but I don't think we needed the alien body in the mix. Still this is a great deal of fun and its one I'm pretty sure I will revisit on the IFC in Theaters where I saw it the first time, and later on I'm sure I'll pick up the DVD.

Worth a look.