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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: November 24, 2009 Distributor: Anchor Bay Director: · Glenn McQuaid Cast: · Dominic Monaghan · Larry Fessenden · Ron Perlman · Angus Scrimm · Eileen Colgan Related Sites: · IMDb: I Sell the Dead Grade: C-

The interesting thing about “I Sell the Dead” is that it is essentially a film about style over substance, reveling in ideas and notions in a comic book 19th Century New York, Sherlock Holmes-y environment, but looks cheap and inconsistent, making the flashbacks in Angel and Buffy seem masterful in comparison. Meandering about with no over-riding plot or meaning, the film stabs at horror without tension, comedy without laughs and comic fable without allegory or worthwhile mythology. This leaves only cult followers keen on aligning themselves with an underground hipster visage, forcing a meaning that simply isn’t there.

Told in flashbacks as an incarcerated grave-robber named Arthur (Dominic Monaghan) recounts his undead conquests with a liquor-drinking priest (Ron Perlman), “Dead” details a young Arthur coming in league with Willie (Larry Fessenden), a man who makes a living by—wait for it—selling the dead. Initially sustaining themselves on straightforward body thievery, the pair eventually discover that selling ghouls is far more lucrative, leading them to a series of kooky battles with vampires and zombies.

Because the film struggles with its own attention span, alien abduction plotlines and rival grave-robbers come into play, before an overly egregious twist brings the film full circle, leaving us to wonder why these latter developments weren’t the primary forces driving the plot in the first place.

Stylistically the film goes for a storyboarded comic book aesthetic, occasionally freeze-framing to animations of the characters in mid-peril or kill, which explains the full-length comic book included with the DVD, detailing the entire film, for those that want to read what they just watched. While some of the stylizations in the film aid this grounding concept, an overall lethargy in most sequences keep it from taking hold of these graphic novel intentions.

With some focus, or really any seeming purpose, this could have been the fun indie film that it desperately wants to be, but alas, it is only a drawn out and surprisingly dull comedy of failed zaniness.

Included with the DVD is an hour-long “Making of” supplement, which details rehearsals, set construction, behind the scenes, actors joking around and confessionals about minor details. An able editor would have chopped this down to 15-minutes.

The “Visual Effects” supplement gives us some insights on effects on a budget, while the commentary track with director Glenn McQuaid, along with the track featuring Dominic Managhan and Larry Fessenden, offer additional on-set anecdotes and motivations.