I Sell the Dead

source: I Sell the Dead

I confess, I only watched this because I enjoy Ron Perlman, but I stayed with it because it is a hoot! It is neither excessively gory nor bloody, but it keeps its horror creds kinda side-wise, and kept me chuckling throughout. I find it hard to categorize this odd flick, but if you have the 90 or so minutes, give it a try - it is fun! The story line allows you to expect a bigger payoff than you get, but the actual story more than makes up for it. First you meet the apparent villain and his church appointed accuser. It rapidly becomes apparent that the real issues are not mundane but seriously supernatural!Vampires, zombies, grave robbers. The world is not as simple as you might wish. Oh MY - laugh and enjoy - it is worth the visit!

source: I Sell the Dead

It is so refreshing to see a movie like this with actual mood and personality instead of just a bunch of CGI cartoon gimmicks. This is a great horror-spoof that has genuine chills along side some really great sets and performances. Its laughs are subtle, but plentiful. Because there is very little if any CGI, there is no need to violently shake the camera around to hide the crappy effects. This makes the movie immensely watchable compared to the other camera-man-must-be-sh%#@ing-his-pants films of this genre that have come out in the last decade or so. Far more enjoyable than the big-budget re-made garbage being released by Hollywood today. See it.

Good natured grave robber horror comedy, with fantastic leads, concerns Dominic Monaghan as Arthur Blake, awaiting the guillotine for the supposed murder of a member of the infamous House of Murphy. A priest, Father Duffy(Ron Perlman), wants to hear Blake's confession, demanding to know how he got to where he now is, a cell awaiting his execution. So, with some whiskey at hand, supplied by Duffy, Blake begins to elaborate his life of notoriety as a grave-robber, a life long partner and apprentice of Willie Grimes(Larry Fessenden, in perhaps his greatest role to date, stealing every scene he's in). Forced by blackmail into giving a doctor corpses(Angus Grimm who looks like Ebenezer Scrooge), Blake and Grimes soon discover the undead(!)while digging up a grave located outside of their village's cemetery and this actually leads to some minor moments of prosperity as they are able to rid themselves of Quint(Grimm)and benefit from a clientèle willing to pay big bucks for vampires(they actually favor the ghouls from "The Evil Dead" rather than your usual more romanticized vampires)as to discover the secret to immortality. We learn about a new apprentice, and love interest to Blake, for Grimes, Fanny Bryers(Brenda Cooney)who uses her feminine wiles in order to manipulate them into boating to an island where crates carrying the undead are located even though they are reluctant due to the fact that the House of Murphy were commissioned for the job. We see that Willie was indeed beheaded for his crimes and that while they were on the island, Grimes was bitten by a vampire. There's an amusing twist involving Duffy's real motives behind "interrogating" Blake, and "I Sell the Dead" is rife with all sorts of gallows humor. I think this movie's success is in the perfect casting, Monaghan, to me, has never been better and his storytelling is handled with jolly good flair. Perlman, as his ears to the endless series of strange vignettes, and Fessenden as Blake's grimy, but loyal, partner-in-crime add substantial support. The score is quite reminiscent to Danny Elfman and fits the movie's tone suitably well. A Burke and Hare comedy featuring the undead, how could I not like this? My only gripe is some rather blah computer graphics, although I love the hell out of a good "talking decapitated head" gag. Some minor cannibalism with a spattering of gore from time to time. I just adore the way Blake describes the House of Murphy and how the director presents them. I also liked how the director evokes the period, with plenty of Gothic touches here and there. I do wish the movie had more of Scrimm. The movie's most bonker highlight regards a certain frozen corpse Blake and Grimes are hired to collect, which introduces us to Cornelius Murphy. There's some magnificent lighting on display in this film, such as how Cornelius is shadowed. Cleverly edited as well. A real treat for fans of black humor.

OK. Finally, a horror film that's done well. As soon as I heard the music, I knew that some effort had been made in creating what I consider to be an almost masterpiece of good ol'horror. Zombies, whores, booze, grave snatching and a lot more. A great cast, well acted, well directed, well written---there was hardly a flaw. Even the American actors with Irish/English accents really pulled it off. I thought that the actor Larry Fessenden looked familiar to me. It was that missing tooth. Finally I realized that this guy was the lead in "Habit" a film about vampires in NYC. I thought he was excellent in that role. Now I'm wondering if he's an American or not. His accent was so convincing in "I Sell," that I thought he had to have grown up in the emerald isle, not in the US. Well apparently he's a born and raised New Yorker. A great actor--really made the role his own in this movie. Nothing beats a horror flick set in early 19th century Europe (like the old Hammer flicks.) I encourage anyone that wants to have a great time to watch this well crafted 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.

I am a usually a very generous voter on IMDb and don't bother commenting on movies I did not like, but this was just lame. I actually turned it off 15 minutes before finishing it, to watch "This Is It" (because my gf wanted to... I just chose the lesser of two evils). If you want to watch this movie: picture this film as a collection of worse-than-average "horror"-stories, like "scary short-stories" that you find in an issue of "Reader's Digest" in the waiting room of your dentist's. I did not expect anything particular terrifying or funny, I am not the "I want to see blood!"-type of person, but this "movie" is neither "horror" nor "comedy" nor entertaining in any other way. It's probably more scary/funny and entertaining to look at the movie-poster of "You've Got Mail" for 90 minutes while drinking chamomile tea. Conclusion: a "horror-comedy" for people between 4 and 7.

What's this? Another recent title? It'd be ridiculous for your fellow ghoul not to keep current with today's releases. I'll try to keep this one brief because I'm still unsure of my opinion in terms of the outcome. I Sell the Dead is about a man by the name of Arthur Blake (played by Dominic Monaghan, commonly recognizable as Charlie from Lost and also a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) who confesses his grave robbing crimes to a priest named Father Duffy (your neighborhood friendly Ron Pearlman). Set in the Victorian era, Blake goes into detail concerning the exploits of his misadventures with his partner Willie. They soon come into contact with a rival grave-plundering gang led by the vicious corpsegrinder Cornelius Murphy. Several twists and turns are contained within peppered by obvious comedic elements. Unfortunately, I've seen better attempts at black comedy on BET. As I mentioned earlier, rating this film is not an easy task. Part of me thoroughly enjoyed the artistic approach and silly premise. On the other hand, I had a difficult time interpreting the pace. Several scenes felt disjointed and out-of-place, leaving me to ponder whether or not it was intentional. The acting is solid, of course. If you enjoy the mixture of comedy and horror (which, to be honest, I'm touchy about) then I would recommend checking this one out. Shut your brain off and enjoy the show...just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

I saw this at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and liked it a lot. It worked for me as a slightly weird comedy, because I don't like horror, but there were only a couple of minutes I had to close my eyes. The dialog was good, the costumes and settings were not far off BBC-quality, which is amazing for an indie film. I liked the way the plot twists and even meanders, it kept surprising me in good ways. I even warmed up to the Willy Grimes character, who I quite disliked at the beginning. It would have been better if there'd been any motivation for the woman to be so interested in going to the island: that felt very much like a plot device. I am fond of Dominic Monaghan, and he did a good job at pratfalls, horror, and at the more thoughtful moments. Nice voice in the narration, too. This would be a fun and unusual date movie.