So... After being stung for a hard earned £20 to watch the Dog Egg that was the Nightmare On Elm Street remake, I turned to the internet to find some Blu Ray bargains. In my neck of the woods, Blu Ray purchases can only be made at HMV or Blockbuster where bountiful discounted copies of 'Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakuel', 'The Hangover' and 'Gamer' flood the shelves, so nuggets of joy that didn't show at the local Odeon have to be bought online.
Shocking, I know.
Long gone are the days where a good root through the movie section of a high street store uncovered hidden gems (unless you consider ANOTHER spurious sequel to 'Bring It On' to be a hidden gem. Which I do. But that's another story for another time...).
Long story short, I was actually looking for 'The Host' on Blu Ray after a cracking review of the lovingly remastered Hi-Def Disc emerged on a blog I like to read during the arduous trip to work each day (The Basement Of Ghoulish Decadence). Any excuse to watch 'The Host' again is fine by me... But imagine my barely contained joy when nestled alongside it was 'I Sell The Dead' for a price SO reasonable that it would have been an insult to pass it by.
Thank you Tesco Direct... I haven't loved you this much since you stopped using Jane Horrocks in your advertising.
Now, 'I Sell The Dead' is a movie that you hear a lot about... Provided you read a lot of horror movie blogs or have interesting friends (or uninteresting friends who happen to read a lot of horror blogs... I don't judge). It is, however, a film that far too many people do not know about. As in, they will stare blankly when you mention that you watched it and then counter with the amazing anecdote of the time they watched 'The Final Destination'... In 3D... And nearly crapped themselves. Awkward smiles abound and then you all move on to another topic of conversation (although, I do own 'The Final Destination', but that is simply because I own the other films in the series and I'm an anal retentive like that... It's the whole 'Bring It On' thing all over again, minus Solange Knowles).
Much like the curiously maligned remake of 'The Wolfman', this is a film that loves the golden age of Hammer Horror (and has seen 'Dead & Breakfast'...). However, it is also a film that has read some nifty comic books and seen some quality television. It knows roughly where it's headed and has no intention of helping anyone along the path it has chosen to take. In short, if you are a cinematic Shelly Winters, this Gene Hackman isn't going to help your lardy movie ass to the bow of The Poseidon. It is a basic skeleton of a plot (grave robbers realise that people will pay more for more the living dead that the stone cold dead and high jinks ensue) that serves to pepper the screen with visual oddities and scattershot ideas that somehow don't feel too smug or disjointed or reference any of the 'must refer to' movies of recent times.
It also manages to remind you that anyone who isn't Tim Burton can make a half decent Tim Burton film these days... Yeah, that's right... Fuck 'Alice In Wonderland'! Lookit Tim, I saw 'Return To Oz' when it came out at the cinema and, even though Faruza Balk gives me the screaming fear (SO... MUCH... GUM!) it was STILL a much better version of your crappy offering! Make another Ed Wood or piss off.
Right... Where was I?
Oh, okay... It's a goofy sort of film that will grate on your nerves for about five to ten minutes as it sets up it's tone and characters (badly) before suddenly sucking you into it's, frankly, bonkers mish-mash of ideas and nicely ballanced CGI/Practical Effect visuals that whisk it along through its brief running time. Had it been cast with Johnny Depp and (Insert Prett Boy Flavour De Jour Here) then it would have been a fair hit at the cinema and have a nice poster quote from Elle and Heat magazines giving it four stars. It doesn't... And is all the better for it.
There's not too much to say about 'I Sell The Dead' that won't sort of dilute the WTF? pleasure of seeing it on a rainy afternoon. It's like having a ten year old tell you a joke that actually makes you laugh... You start off being polite to respect the effort being made to entertain you but, somewhere along the line, you end up being genuinely entertained... Plus which, it will cost you a charming smile and a pebble to pick up a copy on either DVD or Blu Ray (I can't imagine there being a huge difference in picture quality).
Pick it up, watch it, enjoy it, wonder why it never got the cinema release it deserved... Then brace yourself for a LOT of conversations about 'The Final Destination'.
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