I Sell the Dead – DVD Review

The Film:

I Sell the Dead, directed by Glenn McQuaid, is the story of a 19th-Century grave robber Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) whom when faced with the guillotine for his crimes decides to confess all to a priest (Ron Perlman) just hours before his scheduled execution is to occur. His boss in this niche market, Willie Grimes (Larry Fessenden), was executed just prior to Blake’s and this is where our story starts off.

This film starts off looking like a real gem, a period horror comedy with a superb cast of excellent actors and actresses. The opening credit sequence is up there as one of the best I have ever seen. Not as good as Seven’s or Fight Club’s opening credits, but not too far off. Director McQuaid also chose to use a comic book motif throughout the film, very much reminiscent of the horror film Creepshow and its sequel. I loved the way it looked in the Creepshow films and I loved it in I Sell The Dead.

The shot selection was excellent-flawless cinematography with well-lit shots, great edits, and an over-all, top-notch look to the film. I also noticed that the music for the film was very good, sort of reminiscent of one of my favorite composers Danny Elfman, but still Jeff Grace gave the music its own distinct style. So far, off to a terrific start and the action and plot of the whole film has not even begun to unfold. Next up, the subject matter of the film: grave robbers. As the film unfolds a little bit more, viewers are introduced to the undead. This movie just keeps getting cooler and cooler. Now that one has grave robbers, creepy cemetery shots, undead corpses attacking the living that had superb make-up jobs done on them-where is the gore…the blood…the guts?

There was very little or none. How can one make a film whose premise is the living dead and grave robbing and not have any blood, or very little. I was enjoying this winner of the Slamdance Film Festival Best Cinematography Award (Richard Lopez) for all the aforementioned reasons (including Angus Scrimm, the tall guy from Phantasm) cast as Dr. Vernon Quint whom employs Blake and Grimes to steal corpses for him so he can experiment on them-but the fact that after watching nearly 90 minutes of a comedy-horror film there were only 2 or 3 scenes of gore worth noting in its entirety? The film just lost major points with me on the gore criteria but won huge points with the art that was thrown into the film, giving it an almost pulp-like feel and look to it. Comic book lovers will appreciate artistic fades from scene to scene.

It really is too bad, because I thought that the zombie effects in the film were really solid, some of the best looking modern zombies I have seen in quite some time. Also of note, the story flowed really nicely, giving the movie a whole feeling of listening to morbid bedtime story told by one’s grandmother or grandfather. It really had a kind of childlike ambience to it and everyone in the movie was cast superbly. I really enjoyed this film the most for its visual flair and flawless special effects and make-up. Too bad there was not just a bit more gore and blood showing off just how proficient those artists truly are.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: The video for the DVD was great looking. As I said, the colors, hues, contrast- everything was all there and looked incredible. It was shot so well and just looked so slick that it really stood out. The movie looks awesome. The quality of the picture complemented the visual effects in the film. The audio was pretty solid and there were no flaws heard by these ears. I was enjoying the music for the film as much as or even more than the film itself so it helped that the audio of the film was done well. Dolby 5.1 is offered on this DVD.

Commentary: This is one of those films that have two commentaries! I love when films have more than one commentary. There is one with director Glenn McQuaid and a second one with actors Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden. The commentary by Monaghan and Fessenden was quite a bit more light-hearted and full of much more laughter and cracking of jokes than director Glenn McQuaid had on his commentary. Combine the two commentaries together and one has a very well balanced disc of commentaries. I preferred the insight into the film that McQuaid gave in his commentary.

The Making of I Sell the Dead: I found this extra in the film to be very interesting, as it showed the process from a logistical and business standpoint, possessing many behind the scenes shots of the prop and set department building and preparing pieces to be used in the film. What made this so special was the fact that Jeff Grace’s music is played through some of the segment. Director McQuaid goes into the origin as to where the idea for the film came from, including an exhaustive amount of footage from the special/visual effects end of the film, as well as candid interviews with cast and crew alike. It was over an hour in duration.

Visual Effects Behind the Scenes: This segment is for all computer geeks and tech heads in the room. Many early pre-visualization animatics are shown in this portion, as well as director McQuaid discussing in layman’s terms what is going in the film and how the effects helped him foresee his vision. It was interesting just how many visual effects were used, as they looked really good and I did not notice them thinking much of it was organic. Like I said, this film looks so damn slick! This portion runs just over 12 minutes.

Conclusion: Overall, I really did enjoy this film, even with its lack of gore and blood (the level I prefer), and the excellent characters, cinematography, special/visual effects, and delightful soundtrack will win over lovers of horror and comedy alike.

The Film: Rating:

The DVD: Rating: