Directed by:Glenn McQuaid, Starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fassenden, Ron Perlman, Angus Scrimm
Here is another movie that seemed to have gone under the radar.An original, clever story that quickly faded away to allow more room for the never ending arrivals being cranked out from the remake machine.
I Sell the Dead is a smartly written story that blends both dark humor and the macabre in equal parts as it unfolds the tale of a young man sitting in a prison cell. Waiting for his turn to place his head into the chopping block.
This is just your average little period piece set in nineteenth century England involving grave robbers vampires,zombies and aliens. It's a quaint and charming film that will win you over with it's main characters, dark humour,and comedic situations the two protagonists finds themselves in. When we are first introduced to Willie Grimes (Fassenden)as he is being violently pushed towards a guillotine by the village executioner. A small audience gathers to watch and throw obscenities towards him. As poor Willie settles his neck onto it's final resting place , the blade comes crashing down and his head is seen to separate from it's body and falls into a blood stained wicker basket.The screen fills with a blood red colour,and the picture turns to a cartoon , much like that from a comic book. This effect is used throughout the film, the movie Creepshow also used this technique to begin a new story in it's anthology.I like it.
Father Duffy( Perlman) is seen walking down a long corridor, his destination, the prison cell at the end of the hall. Inside sits Arthur Blake(Monaghan), imprisoned for murder and grave robbing. Blake confesses to the grave robbing but not of murder. He insists that he and his partner Grimes were set up.
I Sell the Dead consists of for lack of a better word chapters, each chapter starts with Father Duffy and Blake conversing and then via flashbacks we are taken back to Blake's life of grave robbing. We see how Blake as a boy met Willie Grimes and how the young boy's first job almost became his last. The young Arthur Blake eventually proves his worth to Grimes and grows to be his business partner.
The two eventually find themselves working for Dr. Vernon Quint (Angus Scrimm) who is experimenting with corpses. Soon he wants more bodies and the fresher the better, he has the two by the short and curlies and will turn them over to the authorities if they do not oblige. Not wanting Quint to call on the police, the duo resorts to robbing bodies from wakes. With Quint behind them , Blake and Grimes move onto new adventures and discover the art of resurrection. They find a grave buried outside of the cemetary gates, which they found strange, but decide to unearth the occupant anyways. Opening the crate they discover the body donning a necklace of garlic and a wooden stake thrust ino her chest, which they remove. In a creepy scene the corpse struggles to get up on her legs,not unlike a newborn horse. Trying to stand, and taking a gasp of air again, she attacks as the two look on dumbfounded, struggling for their lives until the undead woman falls back onto to the stake. In a comedic fashion, Grimes pulls out and inserts, pulls out and inserts the stake several times bringing life and death back and forth to the vampire. Upon finding out certain customers are willing to pay ten times the amount for unusual corpes, our heroes decide this is the way to go for their future of grave robbing.
Finding a grave with the ground frozen above it, the curious pair digs this one up also. Unearthing a small casket and believing a child is inside, they remove their coats and cover the box to protect their hands from the coldness it emits. On the way into town to sell their wares, they are stopped by Cornelius Murphy, a member of the Murphy House, a rival gang of grave robbers. Grave robbing is a competitive business. He demands the occupant be handed over to him , Blake refuses, a struggle occurs and the contents of the box dissappears into a of blinding ray of light from the sky.
With cockney accents,dirt and grime covered skin and clothes,these characters look like they could have stepped out of the pages of a Dicken's novel. Ron Perlman is such a great character actor bringing his uniqueness to every role. It's no wonder Guillermo del Toro insisted Perlman star in Hellboy, or director McQuaid wait to commence filming so Perlman could finnish his prior committments. He has a strong screen presence and suits these period pieces well, one of my favourites is his performance of a hunchback in the film In the Name of the Rose. Larry Fassenden is usually found behind the camera as a director. I have never seen him act before but personally felt he held his own and definitely did not look out of place in the presence of the more seasoned pros here. He brought a whimsical feel to the character of Willie Grimes, with his chipped tooth and a silly grin.Dominic Monaghan is probably the best known here as he was seen by millions of people in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as Merry Brandybuck a hobbit and in the television serise Lost. As Arthur Blake, I think he was an excellent choice of casting in the role of the misguided youth .Monaghan and Fassenden compliments each other in the roles of the grave robbing duo. Angus Scrimm is a tall person, and in the Phantasm films he was known as The Tall Man, who had a menacing evil stare. Even today for a man of his age he adds a powerful presence to his characters and still remains intimidating. All the actors chewed a little scenery, but you could tell they were having fun in their roles.
There are flashbacks within flashbacks to tell the story of missisng crates that are believed to have washed up on the shores of a nearby island.Doctors believe the contents can help towards immortality. Grimes and Blake along with his newly acquired girlfriend Fanny,make the trek across the ocean for their fortunes.All does not go as planned,as members of the house of Murphy have reached the crates first and Grimes will be bitten by an occupant of one of the crates.
Director Glenn McQuaid first used the the characters Arthur Blake and Willie Grimes in a short film he had made earlier. He loved the characters that he created and wanted to see more of them. So he wrote this feature film and even has plans for a prequel I Sell the dead is an indie film, independant of any of the big studios financing. But the care and love that went into this project makes it look many times better than many Hollywood " A " films. This picture looks like it was fimed in the cemetaries and moors of England, but actually shot entirely in the state of New York. A great part on Staten Island, specifically an old fort. With the help of a fog machine the cemetaries look like they are located on England's moors. The pub that is frequented quite often for a quaff of ale by our heroes, The Fortune of War is actually a bar in the East Village of New York city and is still open for business.
I like the use of the camera's aperture to close and open a scene, this is an effect usually found on older , mostly silent era films. Nice touch, makes you believe you are watching an older film. One more thing that takes you back to the oldies is the title card at the end of the movie that reads A Good Cast is Worth Repeating. This was used in the 1932 production of Frankenstein.
Back at the prison cell, with Father Duffy taking in all the information he has heard from Blake's tales, the priest attacks . We now find out the priest's identity and his true intentions.
My Thoughts: I think this is an excellent mixture of humour and horror. The make up effects are very well done , not overly frightening but look good. There is a knife to the throat gag that looks convincingly real.The acting, a job well done. I also enjoyed the music by Jeff Grace, consistant throughout. Whether it was eerie or slightly comedic as like the film, the tone altered many times . My favourite being A What Which a happy go lucky sounding tune with whistling.
My Rating: 4 Go Go Girls out of 5 ( No nudity, I know, but this was just good old fashion fun.)
