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If you’ve ever wondered (and god knows there have been nights where I’ve pondered this very thing…) what would happen if you crossed the period horror aesthetics of Hammer’s classic cinema with the more inventive and slapstick stylings of Sam Raimi, I’ve got the answer for you: you’d wind up with something that looks a lot like Glenn McQuaid’s I Sell the Dead.

This humorously macabre period piece captures the cheap ambience of countless Hammer flicks and deftly mixes it with the inventive camera work, bizarre characters, and ghoulish humor of Raimi’s Evil Dead films. Add in a cast filled with solid actors (and cult favorites like Angus Scrimm to appeal to the horror geek contingent) and you have the recipe for one of the more entertaining independent horror films emerge this year.

Larry Fessenden and Dominic Monaghan star as Willie and Arthur, a pair of graverobbers struggling to make a living in a profession that’s neither glamorous nor particularly safe. When the film opens, we see Willie meeting his end at the gallows—and learn that Arthur is set to follow him a short time later. Before that happens, Arthur’s given the chance to chat with Father Duffy (Ron Perlman)—and he spends his last hours on Earth recounting not only how he and Willie met (and wound up graverobbers), but their encounters with both the supernatural and their bitter rivals, the Murphy Clan (who may be a bit supernatural in their own right). What ensues is a bit uneven (mostly because McQuaid has made the odd decision to shoot the film in an episodic fashion that doesn’t always suit the material), but also unlike anything else I’ve seen in the past few years.

McQuaid’s decision to tell the tale of I Sell the Dead in flashback episodes seems fine at first. When we’re watching Arthur and Willie meet for the first time, or their first few trips to gather corpses together, the fractured approach works well. The segments are essentially elongated flashbacks, but they have enough narrative thrust to sustain them until we get back to the present. It’s only in the latter stages of the film, where the more nefarious underpinnings of the story start to reveal themselves that this approach becomes more distracting than helpful. While these later sequences are flashbacks as well, the almost disjointed presentation of them serves to trivialize their potential impact. Sequences that should have punch feel as inconsequential as the opening pieces because they’re presented in exactly the same fashion.

For a prime example of this in action, a segment late in the film finds Willie and Arthur on the island that Murphy’s use. There’s an eventual showdown (replete with throat slashings, zombies, and other assorted horror elements) and it’s one of the story’s defining moments overall. Unfortunately, given the way that it’s presented in relation to everything that’s come prior, the importance of the scene doesn’t really register until it’s over. There’s no real way of knowing that this scene should stand out from the rest of the work because the film’s narrative structure doesn’t build up to it in a traditional way. I don’t know that I’m actually phrasing this right, but basically the scenes that should have power feel almost robbed of it thanks to the narrative construction of the film.

That’s a pretty big issue, but it doesn’t ruin the film by any stretch—and it’s the only real negative the film has happening. Let’s look at the positives.

Fessenden and Monaghan (and Perlman and the rest of the cast) are great. I always think of Larry Fessenden as a director first and actor second, but that might start to change now. The two leads have a definite chemistry and good comedic timing, which makes the film’s flights from horror to comedy much more enjoyable than they would have been with lesser performers. Horror comedy is one of the hardest things to pull off (it looks so easy when it’s done well that it seems to have a siren song affect on a lot of filmmakers) but a big part of having it come together is finding actors up to the task. Fessenden and Monaghan certainly are—and Ron Perlman is no slouch either. The only real complaint with the casting of the film is that Angus Scrimm turns up in a cameo that’s far too short. I would have liked to have seen more of him and his character.

McQuaid’s direction (aside from the decision to go with the episodic narrative structure) is deft and the equal of the performances. This is a low budget film, yet it oozes style (some of it lovely in its cheesiness—such as the various CGI backgrounds). McQuaid spends a lot of time aping the stylistic approach of Sam Raimi (this is particularly noticeable in a scene where Willie and Arthur encounter a female vampire), but it feels more like genuine homage to an idol rather than a crass attempt to merely cash in. In fact, one of the film’s greatest selling points to its intended audience is that McQuaid seems to sincerely love the genre. There are moments where this almost overwhelms the film as a whole (I occasionally found myself wishing he’d slow down just a bit), but it’s hard to fault someone for loving this stuff too much.

And really, that’s what it all comes down to with I Sell the Dead—a filmmaker and cast that love horror doing their thing. The passion for the material shines through in every frame of the finished product, which allows the movie to overcome the few places where it falters. I Sell the Dead isn’t the best horror film I’ve seen this year, but it’s definitely up there in the top 10. I’d love to see what McQuaid could do with a larger budget.

Horror Geek Rating: 4 out of 5

Tags: Angus Scrimm, Dominic Monaghan, Film Reviews, Glenn McQuaid, I Sell the Dead, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 5:56 am and is filed under remakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.