**/****
starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman
written and directed by Glenn McQuaid
by Jefferson Robbins I was genetically engineered to like this movie, a Hammer Films riff with dollops of Evil Dead slapstick and EC Comics creep-out–so I guess I have to blame the filmmakers for fumbling the experiment. It's rare that a gothic-Guignol seems to drag, but at 84 minutes Glenn McQuaid's graverobbing comedy I Sell the Dead could still be shorter, some bits of business dropped without harm. Then you've got a great hour of television with a fuckton of feature-film pedigree. Producer Larry Fessenden roleplays gleefully as resurrectionist Willie Grimes, framed for murder and ultimately beheaded. Awaiting his own execution, Grimes' partner Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) unspools his story to a confessor priest (Ron Perlman), detailing how the pair moved from simply digging up the deceased for mad Dr. Quint (Angus Scrimm, who really should play Scrooge sometime) to exhuming the undead for added profit. The cast is game, but the movie can't seem to narrow its focus. McQuaid even injects a note of modern science-fiction to no real effect and introduces a third-act love interest (Brenda Cooney) who gets no real arc, though some redemption is granted when one completely predictable reversal is followed by an unforeseen second. In sum, it's a lightweight Halloween rental, a close cousin to Bubba Ho-Tep–although it lacks the heft of that film's meditation on aging and death.
