I SELL THE DEAD
Edited, Written & Directed by Glenn McQuaid
Produced by Larry Fessenden & Peter Phok
Released by IFC Films
USA. 85 min. Not Rated
With Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman, John Speredakos & Brenda Cooney 
 

I Sell the Dead is a lightweight trifle of a horror comedy, simultaneously enjoyable and forgettable. Headed for the guillotine in the morning, convicted grave-robber Arthur Blake is visited by a priest who convinces him to confess his sinful trade in the corpse-selling business in exchange for a smuggled bottle of whiskey. We flash back with Arthur as he tells stories of his apprenticeship to and partnership with the appropriately-monikered Willie Grimes. Set somewhere in Victorian Ireland or thereabouts (although amazingly shot in New York state), his tales begin grim but modestly plausible, but as the whiskey bottle empties, the weirdness (and amusement level) of the yarns—involving mad scientists, grave robbing gangs of higher station, and a great variety of the dead and undead—rises.

Arthur and Willie play their hapless working-class stiffs like a cross between Dickens’ underclass and Shakespearean comic relief. For the most part, it works. Larry Fessenden, whose crooked face you know even if you can’t place it, plays Grimes as a proud but bumbling tradesman always trying to (literally) dig his way out of debt. Arthur (Dominic Monaghan, who with his semi-Irish accent only occasionally escapes reminders of his Lord of the Rings Merry-ment) is more ambitious and only slightly cleverer.

Also notable are John Speredakos as the slow-speaking and very creepy Corneluis Murphy, and Angus Scrim as Arthur and Willie’s erstwhile employer, the evil Dr. Vernon Quint. Ron Perlman’s Father Duffy is a touch miscast, in part because his straining high-pitched Irish lilt is never really convincing, but slightly comedic for such a large-framed man.

The film has no pretensions to allegory, cautionary tales, or deep moralizing. It’s pure entertainment, and draws on the traditions and conventions of pub storytelling rather than horror. That’s smart as the flashback structure (combined with the pre-credit sequence) would eliminate any life-or-death tension. Its stock in trade is a bemused atmosphere and the broad and banal married-couple banter of the two ghouls as they pursue their livelihood. And while that subject matter is cold and dead, the film’s attitude keeps it warm and amusing. Douglas Yellin
August 7, 2009