Dead-off funny. A scene from I Sell the Dead. Unfunny funny business among grave robbers
By Ed Rampell
Director-writer Glenn McQuaid’s I Sell the Dead is dead in the water. It is an unsuccessful attempt to mix the horror and comedy genres like screenwriters Bobby Lees and Fred Rinaldi so wittily did in 1940s Abbott and Costello movies, or Roman Polanski did in the1967 spoof, The Fearless Vampire Killers.
Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden play bumbling body snatchers in this clunker set in 19th (or was it 18th?) century Britain. Ron “Hellboy” Perlman plays Father Duffy, who listens to the confession of one of the condemned grave robbers shortly before he’s scheduled to meet his maker, which provides the narrative structure for this motion picture mishap.
This movie mélange is neither particularly scary nor funny, so it won’t satisfy aficionados of either genre. It has mediocre special effects but some decent images that go from live action to an animation-like freeze frame. The flick is, at best, mildly amusing – and that’s not really quite good enough. Hopefully, I Sell the Dead won’t join the ranks of the undead and spawn a series of sequels that will sell tickets to popcorn munching munchkins for years to come at multiplexes.
