31 Days of Halloween 2012: I Sell The Dead

An appreciation by Bob Ignizio

Arthur (Dominic Monaghan) and Willie (Larry Fessenden) are a likeable if unsavory pair of grave robbers, and very likely murderers as well.   As I SELL THE DEAD begins, the two have been sentenced to death for their crimes.  From his prison cell, Arthur recounts to Father Duffy (Ron Perlman) the events which led him to this fate.  As a child, Arthur (played in his younger years by Daniel Manche) learned the tricks of the ressurectionist trade from Willie.   At first the duo’s main employer is Doctor Quint (Angus Scrimm, familiar to horror fans as “The Tall Man” from the PHANTASM films), an unscrupulous physician in need of fresh corpses for his medical research and not too picky about where they come from.  But things turn from the merely morbid to the supernatural when the Arthur and Willie learn there’s an even better market for the bodies of the living dead.  Business picks up considerably once they start dealing in vampires, zombies, and other assorted oddities.  But not only is the product more dangerous to handle, there’s a rival group of grave robbers who don’t take kindly to anyone infringing on their turf.