Return of the Living Horredy

Hey there Horror Nuts! Welcome to another WTFHM!

Okay, so this week we’re going to circle back to the good old fashioned horredy (Yes, it’s still a thing I’m doing. Just roll with it.)



As previously mentioned, I like a good horredy. I also like decidedly stupid movies.

Hard to believe with as many raspberries that I’ve put out there for the crime of being stupid that I should have an affinity for stupid movies. You see, there’s an art to good stupid movies. Well, not so much of an art as a basic philosophy: Why so serious? It’s only horror.



That’s pretty much the vein in which this movie lives.



I Sell The Dead starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman, Brenda Cooney, and John Speredakos.



Okay, so we open this story with the beheading of Willie Grimes(Fessenden) local grave robber. His partner Arthur (Monaghan) is in jail awaiting execution. While he’s waiting he gets a visit from Father Duffy(Perlman) and tells him to tell him his story.




Arthur tells him he and his partner are innocent and that they were set up. Father Duffy doesn’t buy it, but gives him whiskey and tells him to tell his story anyway.



So, the story is that way back when Arthur was a kid, his mother sends him out into the world to find a job. She tells him to talk to a friend of Willie’s and Willie would help him at his job…which is grave robbing.



Now, the reason they’re grave robbing in the first place is kind of fuzzy. Apparently, they live in a town where you can sell dead bodies to people and make a profit, I don’t know.



Anyway, they meet a few obstacles along the way. First, they get blackmailed by local scientist Dr. Quint (Scrimm).



Okay, so you know I can’t just let this go forward without giving a shoutout to Angus Scrimm. If you don’t know who that is, turn in your horror movie lover card right now.



If you have not seen Phantasm, stop what you’re doing and watch it. Right. TF. Now. I mean it! You’ve been robbed in life if you haven’t experienced one of the creepiest, weirdest horror movies of all time and now you’re sitting here reading this disrespectfully going “What kind of name is Angus Scrimm anyway?"



I’m not playing with y'all. Go watch Phantasm. I’m confiscating your cards. You'll get them back when you can quote a line from the movie.

Anyway, Dr. Quint blackmails the grave robbers by telling them that he’s going to sell them out unless they steal bodies just for him. They do and this goes on for many, many years until one day Willie and Arthur find a vampire corpse. 

They, being typical horredy protagonists, don’t know what a vampire is or why the corpse they’ve found has a garlic necklace on it and a stake through its heart, so, of course, they remove the necklace and the stake and shenanigans ensue.



Once they stake the body again…and again...and again because she keeps coming back to life, they decide to send her to Dr. Quint.



Dr. Quint gets the body, removes the stake and the vampire comes back to life and murders him.

Okay, so then Arthur goes into that one time that they got hired to dig up a strange coffin without opening it. Well, the coffin (which is encased in frozen dirt and is frozen itself) is so cold that they can’t carry it with bare hands. They try to carry it their shirts when they accidentally drop it.



The top comes off and they find…



Yeah, seriously. So, they both go, “That’s weird…but it’s easier to carry now” and lift the alien body out of the coffin in order to carry it off. They’re interrupted by Cornelius Murphy (Speredakos) of the infamous House Murphy. The following conversation ensues:

Cornelius: Drop the weird body.

Willie: Okay. We don’t want any trouble. Arthur drop the body.

Arthur: No. Why should I?

Cornelius: Because you don’t want this smoke.

Willie: We really don’t. Arthur, do what he says.

Arthur: Nope. This was our find. Back off.

Cornelius: Okay, I’m just going to take it from you.

And the three of them fight over the body until a light comes out of the sky and takes it away and they don’t run into anybody from House Murphy for quite some time. 

Until one day, Arthur and Willie and Arthur’s girlfriend and grave robbing apprentice Fanny Briers (Cooney) are chilling in a pub, playing drinking games and living life, when they hear from the bartender who heard it from a neighbor of his that a local mortuary just lost a bunch of crates with zombies in it. And zombies are worth a lot of money.



Anyway, a bunch of the crates washed up on an island where House Murphy was going to go collect them in the morning. Both Willie and Arthur having gotten the whole program on how dangerous House Murphy actually was, decline on the offer.



Later that night, Fanny starts talking all kinds of crap to Arthur about how much of a punk he is for not taking the job. Arthur gets so frustrated with being called all kinds of punks that he finally relents and the three of them end up going to the island.



At the island, they find the crates and start opening them and, of course, get attacked by zombies. They manage to subdue one, but not before one of the Murphies shows up and threatens Arthur. Fanny quickly dispatches him. 

Yeah. Like that...except for real. 

So, that’s fine until Cornelius and a Masked Female Assassin Murphy show up, kill Fanny and tie Willie and Arthur to a cage with the zombie in it. Then the following stupidness occurs. Having them tied up, they decide to gloat about their victory and open the remaining crate. The zombie in the crate attacks the masked woman, the zombie in the cage Willie and Arthur are tied to gets free and viola, Cornelius and Masked Murphy are eaten, giving Willie and Arthur time to escape.



Father Duffy asks Arthur which one of them was actually responsible for Cornelius and Masked Lady’s death and Arthur reiterates that they just left and didn’t actually kill either of them. This makes Father Duffy unnecessarily angry.



So, he flips tables and threatens to kill Arthur using a mace. You see, Father Duffy is really Samuel Murphy of the House Murphy. He’s about to kill Arthur when he’s murdered…by Willie…holding his head. 

See, back when they were fighting the zombies on the island, Willie had been bitten, thus, making him undead. The two of them leave the jail cell with Willie joking about being ravenous.



The End.



Oh, yeah, and Cornelius jumps out of a watery grave all Friday the 13th style.

So, what did I think? Well, this is one of those movies that if you happen to be one of those staunch, humorless movie watchers that only like deep, philosophical, kinds of movies that win Oscars, then skip this one. This is not a movie for people with little or no sense of humor.



However, it wasn’t Army of Darkness or Monty Python level of funny. I got a few chuckles out of it, so I’ll give it a Pink Diamond.



Next week! It Comes at Night. Pretty sure I’ve seen this one too and fallen asleep on, so I guess we’ll see. 

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