Dominic Monaghan is a 19th Century grave-robber soon to be sent to the chopping block for his crimes like his cohort Larry Fessenden before him. First, though, Irish (ish) priest Ron Perlman (full points for trying an accent, but…yeah) wants Monaghan to retell his story about his beginnings in the grave-robbing business, which sometimes involves corpses that don’t seem to want to…um…stay dead. Angus Scrimm, The Tall Man from the “Phantasm” flicks, plays a doctor who employs the services of the grave-robbers.
This light-hearted horror flick from writer-director Glenn McQuaid (a first-timer with a background in FX work) might’ve been fashioned into an OK episode of “Masters of Horror” (and maybe directed by Stuart Gordon or Joe Dante), but as a feature film it goes nowhere…slowly. And in flashbacks, no less, meaning that the film’s best actor (that would be Mr. Perlman) is hardly in the film. It seems at first to be going for somewhere between the classic Roger Corman comedy-horror for AIP “Comedy of Terrors”, and something akin to the story of grave-robbers Burke and Hare (who are actually mentioned in passing), but it doesn’t end up going anywhere much at all.
The film looks more expensive that it probably was, looking somewhere in the vicinity of an AIP Edgar Allen Poe film or a cut-rate Hammer film, and that’s a compliment. The exteriors are nicely foggy and atmospheric in a way that I very much dug (The interiors are a bit underlit, though). The subplot about Murphy and his gang seems so much more interesting than everything else that it’s a shame the film isn’t about them. The best bit is the tale of young Cornelius Murphy and his heartless dad. The punchline to that is disgustingly funny in a film where most of the black humour falls a bit flat. Speaking of subplots, that was an alien corpse we see at one point, right? What’s up with that? It’s seen once and never referred to ever again. Bizarre.
It’s all a bit slow and uneventful, despite an interesting genre cast (though neither Perlman or Monaghan are used to good advantage) and plot elements that might’ve worked in another film, especially since there’s barely even a plot here at all. There’s a decent spurt or two of gore, but I didn’t much care, ultimately, and that goes double for the final reveal, a surprise I could care less about. Anyway, I’m gonna go watch “The Body Snatcher”, a vastly superior Burke and Hare-inspired horror tale with Boris Karloff and Henry Daniell.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A slow-moving, seemingly pointless excursion into grave-robbing, the undead, and poor comedy. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t. You’ve seen this done a lot better before.
