03/02/2012: I Sell The Dead [2008]

So last night was a night full of horror comedies, and where Tucker & Dale simply took the formula of the standard slasher flick and inverted it, I Sell The Dead is completely originally and equally funny. It is a different kind of humour however, darker and with more satire, with macabre comments that would tickle the deads funny bone.

I Sell The Dead, is well exactly what the title says. The movie tells the story of Arthur Blake, and his life as a Grave-Robber in the 18th century. Introduced to the business as a child by his partner Willie, Blake is unfortunately sitting in a jail cell awaiting his execution for grave robbing and murder. He claims to only be guilty of the "despicable grave-robbing part" and is coerced into telling his story to a priest before he is beheaded.

I Sell the Dead is a British comedy threw and threw but is rather original and anything but linear in it's storytelling. Blake tells us a number of tales about his night in the graveyard and the grave robbing trade. I think it is the uniqueness of each tale that keeps the movie seeming fresh and not creating boredom.  The stories all revolve around "one night in the graveyard" or "whats in the casket".

Our pair of ghouls and one pretty lady. Grave robbing doesn't only happen at night.

[Spoilers] (nothing big or key to the story)

So by now your wondering how there can be more than one simple story about grave-robbing, and how does the movie count as horror. Simple, what is one of horrors favourite things, why the undead of course. So after a half hour of fun grave robbing capers we encounter are first corpse, who well, is still walking. But that not the only fictional creature we encounter. The most far out story is definitely the one involving a dead alien's corpse although it is really not integral to the overall story. The undead however become key, as whats worth more than a corpse, other than one that is inexplicably still mobile. Apparently the black market for the undead is thriving although are duo always seem to be scraping by. It never is clarified, but the undead appear to be following a number of supernatural creatures rules, mixing up zombies, vampires and apparently mummies. One of the funniest scenes is definitely the first discovery of an undead done in like a vampire, where they discover a stake only acts as a pause button.

[/Spoiler]

She's staked and garlic'd but don't they know you have to remove the head?

The movie is definitely a low budget movie, but this works to its advantage and adds to its charm. With make-up and special effects like the golden ages of horror and not the CGI ridden movies of its time. The  most amazing thing is it's set. The movie has very few building, using only a tavern and a jail cell. The rest of the atmosphere is created through the costumes, props and the dirty graveyards it explores. The little CGI it does use is to generate the backdrop in most of the graveyards, which are kept to a dark and minimal spookiness. One of my favourite things is the art style, which it uses to transition between scenes and for the opening credits. It's easy to see its adaptation into a graphics novel.

A scene transition, while brief the art style is awesome.

I Sell the Dead comes from the production company Glass Eye pix and their low budget horror subsidy Scareflix. Already they have given us The House of The Devil and now The Innkeepers, I can only hope for a sequel to I Sell The Dead. The films ending clearly gave us that option, and apparently the script has been written but will go to the graphic novel  first to perfect the story.

All I can say is, this is a great movie, it original for a horror comedy and is not a "hey that was funny so laugh" kind of funny. It subtle and with great characters and performance, backed by a great set and wardrobe. I am going to try and see Burke and Hare soon, which is also a British period-horror-comedy about a pair of grave-digger but I feel that I Sell the Dead will be hard to top.

Link:
I Sell The Dead IMDB